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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28827066">a world built for two</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerie_ground/pseuds/faerie_ground'>faerie_ground</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU- Modern Era, Dark Charles Xavier, F/F, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Medical Experimentation, More In Notes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Torture, general fucked-upness that comes with shaw, this is. not a nice story please heed the tags and forgive me</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:35:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>25,703</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28827066</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerie_ground/pseuds/faerie_ground</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik Lehnsherr is in Shaw’s hands now, for perhaps the rest of his life. The knowledge tears at him and on the third day in the institute he screams so forcefully into the pillow he imagines his vocal chords tearing with the force of it. </p><p>And then Charles Xavier arrives at the mansion, and Erik’s life shifts on its axis again. </p><p>*</p><p>Erik gets kidnapped by Sebastian Shaw into his little army of equally fucked up mutant kids. A week later, Charles arrives. This is their story.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this came out of me having a depressive spiral and wondering how fucked up would erik and charles be if they Both got fucked up by shaw together. also this is an au set in modern era. VERY brave of me to have my third fic in this fandom be this fucked up but. yeah. </p><p>also this does not mean i've given up on land of gods! that story has just been put on hold while i get this out of my system but i will be returning to it within the next 2 weeks or so</p><p>please, please heed the tags. in this chapter specifically, tw for graphic violence, ptsd, dissociation, panic attacks, explicit medical experimentation on minors, explicit description of child abuse</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The day after they murder Shaw and leave his house of horrors, Erik crosses the Canadian border with Charles across his back. Charles had started getting tired while they’d been walking, stumbling and nearly tripping until Erik had forced him to get on his back, ignoring Charles’ protests.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The blood’s seeping out steadily from Charles’ nose, staining his shirt and soaking it through. It’s been leaking on and off, and the effects are already obvious in the dark circles beneath Charles’ eyes. Any more, and Erik knows they’ll have to find him a doctor. He hopes the nearest town in Canada has one that would be willing to treat them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There are so many details that stick out in Erik’s head from that night. The sky- it hadn’t been littered with stars, fairly empty. Charles’ hands looped loosely around his neck like he’d been afraid of gripping tightly, his breaths puffing out next to his ear. His right knee knocking into Erik’s side every now and then. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s you and me,” Erik had said, as they had finally crossed the border, Charles controlling the guards to think they had valid passports.The effort had drained him, and he rests against Erik’s shoulder now in a cab they had finally managed to flag down, lightly dozing. His hand rests on the wallet Erik had pickpocketed off a rich businessman at a truck stop, an action he’d attempted to protest against and failed. “Just you and me against the world, schatz.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Just you and me,” Charles had agreed, his voice weak. “Mein schatz.” He had pressed a ghost of a kiss to Erik’s mind, and despite the despair, the exhaustion, the fear, Erik had smiled.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The day of Erik’s twenty first, he wakes up to an empty bed. The sheets beside him are rumpled and recently vacated, sunlight pouring in everywhere through the windows like a decadent waterfall. It’s a pretty sight, especially in the town where they’re staying at- unusually pretty, even for Germany. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Despite that, Erik is thrown into a panic. He jerks up, heart thundering against his ribcage, dagger beneath his pillow already vibrating. Almost immediately, Charles’ presence is pressed into his mind, soft and comforting. </span>
  <em>
    <span>In the kitchen, sweetheart. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik growls. Charles knows better than to just disappear on him without prior notice. A note, at least, is appropriate and the done thing. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You </span>
  </em>
  <span>know </span>
  <em>
    <span>you’re not supposed to do that.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I know, I know, I’m sorry! I just- surprise? </span>
  </em>
  <span>The last word is said weakly, as an olive branch. Erik huffs and throws the blankets off, getting up from the bed. Even in his irritation, he doesn’t close his mind off to Charles. He knows what that would do to Charles and after the years spent together, he doesn’t want to be the cause of further pain to him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>That’s very sweet, darling. Come down quickly, please?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You drive a hard bargain,” Erik says aloud, but he’s grinning. He gets done as fast as he possibly can, throwing on a grey shirt and sweatpants just in time to see Charles in the kitchen, dressed in what looks to be Erik’s hoodie and his boxers,flipping pancakes and nodding his head to the beat coming from the stereo. It’s jazz music, horribly boring, and yet Charles is shaking his hips and tapping his feet like it’s revolutionary dance music.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik can’t help it. He creeps behind Charles and then picks him up, squeezing his arms around his waist and spinning him around. Charles yells out and whacks at his arms ineffectually. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Erik! Erik, that’s so mean, put me down- your breakfast!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Fuck breakfast,” Erik declares, but puts him down anyway. Charles flips the pancakes over and then turns to glare at him, giving off the impression of a very ruffled kitten. His hoodie is askew, one sleeve rumpled up too high and another sleeve stained with what looks like the remnants of egg.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I wanted to make it a surprise! You’re awful, I don’t know what I expected-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Absolutely awful,” Erik agrees, entwining his arms around Charles’ waist again, “but yours.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The look on Charles’ face softens. An easy flush spreads across his cheeks, turning the scar on his cheek a light red as well. Erik can’t help himself, brushing his lips over it and then gripping him close, swaying on the spot for a moment. Here in the kitchen it’s quiet and peaceful, a special little bubble they’ve carved out for themselves.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles leans up on tiptoe, brushing his lips over Erik’s and whispers, “Happy birthday, baby.” Erik smiles into the kiss, letting his hand span over the expanse of Charles’ back, fitted on the ridges of his spine. They hold each other for a second or so more, breathing deep into the kiss before Charles slaps at his arm again. “Come on now, set the table, there’s a chap. I’ll </span>
  <em>
    <span>try </span>
  </em>
  <span>to save these from burning. Birthday pancakes are important.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They are silent for a while, working in tandem in a routine Erik knows well- Charles cooking, Erik getting everything else ready and occasionally handing him an ingredient when the wordless question is pressed into his mind. Once seated and digging into the pancakes, Charles lays a hand on Erik’s arm. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I was thinking,” he says hesitantly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Always dangerous,” Erik says, and dodges yet another slap by him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Shut up, let me speak,” Charles says, laughing. It’s a good look on him, considering he doesn’t do it often. “Anyway, I was thinking- it’s your birthday. The big twenty-one.” He leans over and steals a bit of Erik’s pancake with his fork, making a face as he eats it. Erik prefers strawberry and Charles prefers chocolate- despite this very definite, irreconcilable differences in preferences, Charles always tends to steal his. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So we’ve established,” Erik says. He’s tried not thinking about what hitting twenty-one truly means. Certainly he’d never expected to live beyond twenty. Charles had told him once that every birthday should be taken as a milestone- a sign of what they had achieved so far. “What about it?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What do you have planned?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik furrows his brows, considering. All he has on his schedule for the day is sending over rough sketches of what his next sculptures are going to look like. It had been a bit of a hassle, finding a manager who would be willing to take an artist never appearing at his own galleries and gala events on but Betsy Braddock had been more than ready for the job, just stating that she wanted Erik to submit his sketches and send over his sculptures </span>
  <em>
    <span>on time, Lehnsherr, and nothing less. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It had been Charles who’d bullied him into the art of sculpting with all the force of his imploring blue eyes, his pout, and on one memorable occasion, tears. “You’ll love it,” he had said, for the umpteenth time when Erik had told him he was being ridiculous. “Didn’t you make all those tiny figurines for me, back at the- the p-p-place?” Charles always stutters, whenever bringing Shaw’s veritable house of horrors up, and three years home free hasn’t kicked the habit out of him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik doesn’t tell him the real reason for putting it off, turning this hobby of his into a grounding money-making venture for them. That this freedom of theirs, shifting from city to city until they’ve found this quaint little city in the outskirts of Dusseldorf seems like a pitstop, that even while he’d watched the light in Shaw’s eyes go out it seems as if the spectre of him hangs ominously in the back, waiting to go into the light the second Erik lets his guard down. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik hasn’t let his guard down for three years. Neither has Charles. It’s evident enough when Erik jerks awake in the middle of the night and rolls over to see Charles sitting up and staring into seemingly nothing, hands curled over his propped up knees and eyes frighteningly blank.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Thought we’d laze around, watch a bit of TV,” he finally says. “You wanted to catch the finale of Project Runway, didn’t you?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I did,” Charles says, but there’s something strangely hesitant in the way he grabs at Erik’s wrist, rubbing his thumb over the jut of the bone. “I just- it’s your twenty first, Erik. I mean, don’t you think we could go to see-” his mind projects the images before he can finish, almost unconsciously. Erik sees the image of a castle, grey with its massive turrets and tall arches majestic over everyone else and before he’s even aware of it he’s snapping, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“No.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hear me out,” Charles begs, scooting closer on the chair. His eyes have gone imploring again, as he bites down on his lip, clearly unwilling to give the useless charade up. “Schatz-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s too dangerous,” Erik snaps, and grabs at Charles’ hand himself, rubbing his hand over the circular cigarette burn that’s there. He’d seen Shaw do it himself- another day when Charles, fifteen and knobby kneed and still the boy of Erik’s dreams, had begged Shaw not to make him destroy the mind of the snivelling human before them- a sport, to Shaw, nothing but an adventure in exploring the minds of mutants, non-consensually- and Shaw had retaliated by smiling at him, yanking the cigar out of his lips and stubbing it out on Charles’ palm. Charles’ screams, by then, had become a constant soundtrack to the halls of Shaw’s lair. It didn’t make it any easier to have to listen to it. “Charles, I’ve </span>
  <em>
    <span>told </span>
  </em>
  <span>you, we’re better off alone, together, in seclusion. No crowds, no tourists. Just us.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Charles says, calm and demure, letting go of Erik’s hands. “Ok, schatz.” He directs a smile at Erik and adds, shyly, because of course he knows that’s what Erik’s thinking, “I’m not mad. I’ll listen to you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’s not mad, but he’s slightly upset about it. If Erik’s afraid of losing Charles, Charles is deathly terrified of Erik leaving him. There’s a litany of schemes that run through his head, every day, cogs turning behind those arresting eyes of him that had stolen his heart for the first time all those years ago when they’d met, Charles at nine and Erik at eleven- </span>
  <em>
    <span>how do I make Erik stay? How do I make it worth it? </span>
  </em>
  <span>All a result of Shaw’s mind games and that room of his Charles still refuses to tell him the full details of, his own stepfather’s abuse, culminating in a vicious black hole of self-loathing and downtrodden self-esteem that Erik knows he can never help to heal. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The sight of the downturn in the corners of Charles’ lips, the way he picks at his pancakes makes something in Erik twist. Maybe… “Maybe,” Erik says, and Charles instantly perks up, “we can- go for a walk? I’ll twist the cameras out of sight, and it will be a very short walk, don’t get your hopes up-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s all a moot point, though- Charles beams at him, jumping at him and hugging him with such a great force that the chair almost topples over. Erik tucks his nose into the brown curls at the side of Charles’ head, smiling reluctantly despite himself. For all that they had been through sometimes he forgot- Charles was just a kid, beneath it all. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Really, Erik, you’re just two years older than me,” Charles sighs, detaching himself. Erik misses the loss, reaching for Charles again but he dances out of his reach, beaming. “You won’t regret it, promise!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Of course I won’t,” Erik says softly. “I’ve never regretted you.” Never, not even when-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles smiles at him, youthful and honest, and Erik feels his heart ache. “Now come here,” he says, crooking his fingers. “Wish me a proper happy birthday, liebling.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And of course, Charles obliges.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik remembers when exactly it had started- him falling into the grip of Sebastian Shaw, madman scientist and well known Nazi. It had started with his family coming to America from Germany on a flimsy boat, wanting to make a better life for themselves on the grounds of the American Dream. It had started with his father stepping out onto the street one day, on route back home from work and getting killed instantly by a drunk driver. It had started with his mother hunched at the table and sobbing, about a second away from being evicted from their bastard of a landlord, Erik’s father’s picture crushed in her hand. It had started with a pamphlet delivered to their house- </span>
  <em>
    <span>in search of some free cash? Bring your mutant kid to Dr Shaw’s office, today! </span>
  </em>
  <span>It had started with Erik, in tears and in the throes of a panic attack, unable to move that fucking, </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking </span>
  </em>
  <span>coin, his mother whispering </span>
  <em>
    <span>alles ist gut, alles ist gut, </span>
  </em>
  <span>as Shaw counted to zero and then shot his mother in the face.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Shaw had explained it to him, after, towing him along in the back of his van like a fucking dog. “No one will ever come looking for you, boy,” he had laughed, mocking and loud. “You’re a poor Jewish brat with dead parents. You’re invisible to the system. Who’s going to look after you now? I’m going to tell you the answer, boy- ME! It will be </span>
  <em>
    <span>ME!” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik had shrunk back into his seat, anger thrumming through his veins. He’d already tried killing Shaw once, sneaking up behind him with a paperweight in his hands. Shaw had simply turned around and backhanded him, laughing as Erik had tongued the split on his bottom lip, slick with blood. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Shaw brings him to a mansion. Years later, Erik will still not know where the location of it was- all he does know is that it’s located deep in the wilderness of a town not far from the borders of Canada, judging from the signs in the road leading to it. The mansion- or as Shaw describes it, an institute of learning- itself is the stuff of nightmares- grey, peeling walls, huge awning turrets and a walkway scattered with pebbles and surrounded with an electric fence. It’s not a house- it looks more like a prison. Even before entering it, Erik had known his life in it would have been an unbridled, unrestrained hell, with Shaw as his jailor, his personal Devil. The keeper of the gates of hell. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His first night in the institue, Shaw straps him to the bed with thick leather straps, before inserting a sedative into his body that makes him shudder and choke, a doctor beside him noting down his reactions in a placid, indifferent manner. Two hours in, and Erik already becomes in danger of asphyxiation by his own bile. “You’ll be my greatest creation,” Shaw says, beaming, and Erik tells him to go fuck himself with a chainsaw in German before vomiting all over his scrubs again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There had been a few other students besides him, all miscreants or outsiders collected like prized items by Shaw- a red skinned boy with a forked tail who could teleport, who went by Azazel, Emma Frost who had diamond skin and tried to enter his brain, getting subsequently rebuffed, Angel Salvadore who seemed mightily unimpressed by him and chose to sit with another boy who could create tornadoes, introduced to him by Azazel as Janos. Over the course of the week Shaw brings in more and more kids- a girl with horns on her head, another boy who could create fizzling energy from his hands, a teen who flicked a lighter between his fingers and scowled at them all. The second day of his stay, Azazel asks him for his deal. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Deal?” Erik had asked, confused.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, deal,” Azazel had said, shrugging. “I was thrown out by my parents as baby. Grew up on the streets of Russia, then Shaw find me and bring me here. What’s your deal?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik blinks at him, and says, dry, “Shaw murdered my mother.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Azazel had flicked his tail high, then, a weird tension entering him. “I see,” he had said, and then stood up, scurrying back to the waiting entourage of other mutant kids, Emma Frost’s supercilious figure at the head of them. He’s left on his own after that, the other mutants too frightened to approach him- or, Erik suspects, especially for Emma, too disgusted. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They couldn’t leave, either. No one has suppression collars on and it doesn’t matter because they’re all just kids- too young to fully know the limits of their own ability and wield it like a second limb. The guards and the other orderlies are rude, short and couth, snapping at them and refusing to treat them with respect. Erik kicks one in the shins once, and then has to deal with the panic attack abruptly brought on by having one of the guards slam the butt of their rifle into his jaw.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Shaw had been right, in one aspect. No one comes looking for him, no one sends out milk carton adverts of him, no one rings up the institute searching for one Erik Lehnsherr. Without his parents he’d been wiped off the face of the earth, untraceable. He is in Shaw’s hands now, for perhaps the rest of his life. The knowledge tears at him and on the third day in the institute he screams so forcefully into the pillow he imagines his vocal chords tearing with the force of it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then Charles Xavier arrives at the institute, and Erik’s life shifts on its axis again.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Erik is done with his final sketch of the day he stands up from the desk, stretching. It’s already midday- they have to see about lunch, maybe Erik can pop off to the Chinese place and be back before Charles can notice.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>At least drop by before you leave. I’m having a soak.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik smiles ruefully, following the tendril of Charles’ thoughts before he’s arriving at the landing of the bathroom in their shared bedroom. There he stands, leaning against the door jambs and feeling slightly in awe.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles has his back to him, brown strands wet and sticking to the nape of his neck, a mess of riotous curls. He’s got one hand curled around his knees, folded up as they are, the elbow of his other hand propped against the edge of the bathtub with a cigarette balanced between his fingers- more a stub than a cigarette now, indicating he’s been in there a while. All that creamy expanse of skin is on display, freckles dotted like stardust and scars like shooting stars carved intermittently between them, and Erik feels something twist in his gut, heated and true. If only he’d had his camera nearby- he has a secret scrapbook full of developed pictures of Charles, just Charles, laughing or smiling or even drifting off into space, when he goes wherever he does that Erik can’t follow him into.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles turns, his profile coming into view, and then pinkens, the blush travelling over his shoulders and down his back like a moving thundercloud. “Very flattering of you, my love,” he says softly. “Want to get in with me?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He never has to ask. Erik’s weathered storms- looked down the likes of the vilest evil to walk this earth, gutted them and gotten free, and he knows he’s got a will stronger than many others put together and yet, he’d like to see a man even stronger than him walk away from a sight like this. Laid out in front of him like the most beautiful of art pieces in the Louvre, Erik would be a fool to turn him down. He takes off his clothes, dropping them on the floor before getting in behind Charles. It’s a tight fit but they manage it, Charles bracketed by his legs and Erik nosing his way down the line of Charles’ throat, wet and warm from the heat of the tub. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Thought I told you that smoking was bad for you,” Erik says, disapproving. In response, Charles takes a drag from the stub, blowing out twin plumes of smoke right in Erik’s face and grinning, the corners of his lips curling up in a smile. It’s not as infuriating as it should be- he looks gorgeous, the grey smoke fanning out over the lower half of his face and giving him an ethereal, otherworldly air. A menace, Erik thinks sourly, taking the stub from Charles’ hand and placing it definitively on the edge of the bathtub. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t get why you act so uptight about it,” Charles says, a whine in his tone. “Honestly, if I do die of anything it’s probably not going to be of lung cancer.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik nips him hard on the ear for that, ignoring his yelp. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Don’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>say that, Charles, fuck,” Erik growls, trying his level best to also ignore the goosebumps that are now dotting the side of Charles’ shoulder, over the jut of bone. “Neither of us are dying anytime soon.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Charles soothes, sending an apologetic kiss with his mind. “Actually- you know I don’t make a habit of it, of smoking, I just- there was a new ad in the papers today.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Instantly Erik’s shooting up straight, sending Charles yelping and water flying off the edge of the bathtub. “A new ad? Why didn’t you say so?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It had started a year after they’d gotten out of Shaw’s house, but eventually the money Kurt Marko had gotten from selling Charles off to Shaw had run out. Kurt, Charles had explained once, his legs thrown over Erik’s lap as he’d laid his head back against the head of the sofa, limp and lifeless, that Kurt was a man who thought with immediacy rather than calculation. He’d never expected that the will Sharon Xavier would eventually leave behind would stipulate that each cent of the Xavier inheritance be passed on to Charles on his twenty first birthday. Neither, it had seemed, had Charles. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Kurt,” Charles had continued to explain, his eyes distant and cold in a way they rarely are, “will be eager to get his hands on the money. That can only happen through me. Ergo, he’ll do anything to get his hands on me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I won’t let that happen,” Erik had fervently promised. Even the thought of Marko getting his hands on Charles fills him with a cold sort of fear, chilling and deep. He can’t lose Charles- that will never be an option. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The advertisements had started a week later. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Kurt Marko offers a million dollar reward for anyone with a lead on his missing stepson, </span>
  </em>
  <span>never mind where he had gotten the will to scrounge that money from. The papers, radio, internet all teeming with leads and supposed ‘appearances’ of the elusive, missing heir to Xavier Pharmaceuticals. They all think they have him within their sights, the lost Xavier boy who’d supposedly vanished into the woods beneath the Graymalkin Estate, according to the words of Kurt Marko who’d only gone crying to the media about it sixteen years later. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik is the only one in the world who knows better. He wants to keep it that way. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Relax, I have it handled,” Charles says, making an abortive grab for the cigarette stub and frowning when Erik catches his wrist before he can do so. “I gave a false tip using one of the burner phones, Marko’s men think I was spotted in Manchester.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You should have told me,” Erik says, disapproving. His heart’s still thundering and his mind is racing with panicked possibilities. It’s not just Marko they have on their tail, after all. The whole world is watching, and Erik will be remiss in letting his guard down, even for a second. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles stiffens as if he catches those stray thoughts- curled up in Erik’s mind as he is, he probably did- and then gets up on his knees and moves around until he’s straddling Erik’s lap, brown hair plastered to his forehead. It takes a whole lot of splashing, at least half the water in the bathtub falling out of it and all the air leaving Erik’s body as Charles’ bony elbows smack him in the ribs before Charles is comfortably situated, hand cupping his cheeks. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And risk having you run around like a headless chicken?” Charles continues. There’s something serious in his eyes, however, dark and sober. “Absolutely not. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Relax, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Erik. I had it handled.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>You trust me, darling, don’t you?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Of course Erik does. Erik will trust him with the world, if he can. But Erik loves him, and Erik has always had a problem with handling the things he loves- not that it’s an extensive list.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The twist to Charles’ mouth grows a little sadder. “You’ve protected me this long,” he says quietly. “I wouldn’t have anyone else.” He presses his mouth to the side of Erik’s cheek, heated from the water. All this time, and the touch of his lips feels like the first time he’s felt them, every single time.  Erik entwines his arm tighter around Charles, feeling him kiss his way across his cheek and down his neck. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We need to fix this,” he says quietly, “and soon. One day one of us will slip, and-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You have me naked in your lap,” Charles says, withdrawing so that he can send Erik a dirty look, “and you want to talk about my dickhead of a stepfather?” He takes the hand that’s found its space between his shoulder blades, slides it down until Erik’s fingers are meeting his hole, slick-soft and open. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik blinks. “Well, you were busy,” he says, amused, sliding his fingers in and hearing Charles gasp into his ear, a puff of wet air over his shoulder. Charles is always quiet during sex- not that he’s any better. It’s a habit that grew from their childhood spent in that awful nightmare of a place, making them muted, blurred versions of themselves. Sometimes Erik can’t help thinking that he would have taken meeting Charles anywhere, rather than that place. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What else was I supposed to do while </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> were busy, sing Kumbaya?” Charles snaps, agitated. His fingers skitter up Erik’s neck, into his hair where he grips the strands on the back of his neck. Erik laves the area right below Charles’ jaw, where another scar resides, before withdrawing and blowing over it just to hear Charles moan unnaturally loudly, clapping a hand over his mouth and turning bright red right after. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You know until you come into your inheritance I have to support us,” Erik continues to argue, moving his fingers at a glacial pace and feeling Charles’ fingers bite into the skin of his forearms. He’ll leave marks, and later on he’ll brush his mouth over them again, the slant of his lips apologetic. “And no, your articles on genetics aren’t enough, Columbia pays you in pennies. I don’t even agree with half the bullshit you-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Erik, my darling,” Charles says, and draws back so that Erik’s fingers slide out of him. He hovers over Erik’s straining cock for a second, powerful thighs flexing and dark brown nipples right in front of his mouth, a temptation. Erik can’t do anything but give in, scraping his teeth over them just to feel Charles’ hand clench in his hair, sending tiny pinpricks of pleasure-pain through his skull. “Shut up and fuck me, will you?” He slides down on Erik’s dick, seating himself in one powerful thrust, making Erik clench his hands over Charles’ hips, fitted perfectly into his hands. Erik can’t really do anything but thrust up, then, hands clenching on his hips, the sound of Charles’ hoarse moans a litany of music in his ears. “Shut up and fuck me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik does. The sound of Charles’ hoarse moans a litany of music in his ears, he thrusts up, feeling more of the water splash out and Charles simultaneously jerk in his arms, eyes rolling up in his head. Erik still remembers the first time they’d done this- the morning of Charles’ eighteenth birthday, when Charles had nudged him awake at 3 am and then thrown off his clothes in a hurry, lobbing the lube in Erik’s face. “You can stop waiting now,” he’d said imperiously, a grin stretching over his face, and Erik had realised right then and there that there’s no one he would rather marry than the man before him. One year on and the ring is still collecting dust in his drawer, Erik waiting for the perfect moment and uselessly Googling how to propose to your boyfriend every week or so. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Come on,” Charles whispers, scraping his teeth over Erik’s earlobe, reaching his hand below to where Erik’s cock is splitting him open, red-hot and swollen, and fitting one finger in. “Darling, darling, darling, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Erik-”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” Erik whispers back. Just like in the kitchen, this is another bubble, carved out just for them. They have a million little worlds, composed just for two, nothing existing but their hearts beating in sync. Erik wouldn’t know how to function, otherwise. Sometimes he feels like he’s a ragged bag of bones, Charles holding the ends together with all his might. Other times he feels like letting go would cause Charles to break like fine china, the pieces cracking on the floor and disintegrating into dust. They’re a two way street, helping each other live a malignant form of existence. He bites down on one nipple, flicking the other just to feel Charles’ hand in his hair clench again. “I love you, I love you, I love you-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles sobs and comes, untouched. Erik lets go just a second later, vision whiting out and then returning back to the surface to see Charles thumbing his own nipples, looking annoyed. “Really, Erik,” he says. “What if you’d bitten them off?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik hums in response, smiling softly and pressing his mouth to the side of Charles’ temple. They stay in the cooling water for a while, hearts calming down from the rapid pace they’d been beating at before Charles takes Erik’s hand, sliding it down again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Round two, love,” he says, grinning as Erik gapes at him. “Think you can keep up?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And of course, Erik can’t do anything but oblige.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p><span>Charles Xavier is nine. Charles Xavier gets sold to Sebastian Shaw by his stepfather, Kurt Marko, in exchange for a veritable fortune that replaces the inheritance his useless wife had thus far conveniently forgotten how to gain access to. Charles Xavier has bright blue eyes that Erik can’t stop gazing at and recreating with a paintbrush in his own mind and a cherry red mouth, an intelligent countenance that draws everyone in, even Erik and most dangerously, Sebastian Shaw. Charles Xavier has softened edges and a curious outlook and pisses Erik off, even as he can’t help but hang close to him, giving the other kids at the institute subtle fuck-off</span> <span>eyes. Charles Xavier is-</span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles Xavier is huddled in an alcove with Erik Lehnsherr during the third day of his stay in the institute, gasping and coughing into Erik’s shoulder and unable to remember that he is Charles Xavier.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Focus,” Erik hisses, taking a hold of his bony shoulders and shaking him. Charles had bumped into him when he’d been on his way back to his room from the sad excuse of a cafeteria, and Erik had taken one look at his dilated pupils, trembling hands and the blood still seeping from a hastily plugged up wound at the side of his temple before yanking him into the alcove. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Focus, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Xavier.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I can’t,” Charles sobs, clutching at his shoulder so hard that even through the cloth Erik can feel his nails dig in. “I can’t, too many thoughts, I can’t- we’re running low on potatoes that Erik boy is missing again where is he I miss my mama stop cutting into me that boy shows huge potential I will be us-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Stop,” Erik says hoarsely, and then drags Charles onto his lap, slumping down onto the alcove until he has his legs stretched out in front of him. He can feel Charles slipping from his fingers, like quicksand. There’s no hope for </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span> anymore but he’ll be damned if Sebastian Shaw spells the doom of another mutant simply for his own fucked up, diabolical experiments. He bashes his forehead into Charles’ own one, bringing Charles’ fingers up to his own temples. “Come here. Focus on me. Come back. It’s just me, Charles. Just us, just you and me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He feels Charles in his head, clumsy and then grabbing onto the tendrils of his thought patterns with the finesse and grasping hands of a toddler, slightly painful but more uncomfortable than anything else. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sorry, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Charles whispers, but Erik just shakes his head. He gets flashes- a blonde woman slumped over an armchair, drinking out of a bottle, a huge bearded man slapping at him with large rings adorning his fingers, ominous portraits haunting the walls and a institute not unlike the one they’re currently in, yawning walls and scaled turrets. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Focus, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he shouts again, and the flashes fade with just an impression of Charles curling up in the back of his mind, faded but warm like a pulsing bit of sunshine. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay?” Erik asks hoarsely, and Charles sniffles, releasing Erik’s temples to rub at his leaking nose with the back of his hand. He looks young and tired and hurt, his eyes spilling over and his cheeks blotchy and red. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Charles replies softly. “I’m sorry.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be,” Erik says, as Charles slides off his lap to sit beside him in the tiny, dark alcove. He misses the warmth, but only for a split second as Charles proceeds to rest his head against Erik’s shoulder, his exhaustion pulsing through to him like a long distance call that crackles in and out. “You’re not alone.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles is silent. He rubs at his eyes again and then his nose. Tentatively, he brushes his palm over Erik’s own- not holding his hand, just brushing their hands together in a light touch that makes Erik’s heart grow soft and sore. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Charles?” Erik whispers softly. Charles turns to look up at him, his curls falling into his eyes. It’s only been three days, and Erik already wants him out of this place. This is no place for you, he wants to say. This place will chew you up and spit you out like trash. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik wants so many things. It’s not the first time he has the realisation he will never get any of them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re not alone,” he promises, and Charles exhales, the air puffing out shifting the brown hair away from his eyes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I want to go somewhere else,” Charles whispers. He draws his knees up, resting his chin on them. “I hate what they do to me. I want to go away.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His eyes are brimming with tears again, the hands cupped over his knees so pale the veins show up clearly. Everyone here knows Charles is a telepath, with power capabilities at an extreme so high it’s apparently been unseen and unheard of before. Everyone also knows that for the entire week before his arrival Sebastian Shaw had been excited to an almost unholy extent, sadistic in his anticipation. Erik takes in the pale, slightly green tint to his skin, the way he’s projecting </span>
  <em>
    <span>fearterrordisgustlossiwanttogoaway </span>
  </em>
  <span>all over the place, and knows that whatever Shaw’s been doing to Charles can’t be good.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He thinks of what Shaw’s been doing to himself too. He thinks of Shaw’s plastic scalpel sliding between his ribs, leather straps tying him down to the table, Shaw’s grip tight over his shoulders as he’d whisper </span>
  <em>
    <span>now move that coin move that rod move that pole oh Erik I expected better of you much better, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Shaw’s hammer slamming neatly on his knee, not hard enough to break because he was too smart for that but hard enough to bruise and definitely hard enough to keep Erik awake at night, tears prickling in the corner of his eyes at the red hot pain in his limbs. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The sooner Charles Xavier realised there was no escaping the fate that had befallen him, the better. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Tough luck, kid,” Erik sighs, thumping his head back against the wall. “Don’t we all.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t call me a kid, I’m only two years younger than you,” Charles sniffs. He looks pathetic, clad in the clearly too big medical scrubs Shaw has enforced on all of them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Listen, it won’t get better,” Erik continues awkwardly. “You’ll be able to handle it, though.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles doesn’t reply, his eyes downcast as he stares at his own knees. He looks morose, almost unbearably so. It makes something in Erik’s own heart ache. For some reason, seeing that look in Charles’ eyes makes him feel almost… violent. Like he’d do anything, rip this institute wall from wall if only to see the blue in Charles’ eyes turn lighter. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Come on,” Erik says after a while. “Azazel tells me you’re a genius, kid. Help me with my math homework.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m not a </span>
  <em>
    <span>kid,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Charles grouses but he finally rouses himself, following Erik out. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Since then, though, Charles sticks to him like glue. It looks more than ridiculous to the other kids, a tiny English kid with floppy hair and large eyes following around this perpetually angry devil of a child who’s determined to give all the orderlies and especially Shaw hell. Erik, for his part, doesn’t really want Charles near him. He’d shown Charles kindness, that day, by dragging him into the alcove and calming him down. He’s not obligated to keep showing Charles that kindness, especially not if Charles is going to act like Erik’s his personal guardian angel, his saviour from anything and everything in this goddamned institute. He can’t afford to form attachments, not in this slice of hell where Shaw and his orderlies have their eyes on him all the time, ready to dissect and manipulate to their heart’s content. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Emma Frost deigns to finally approach him one day after that first time, when Charles is off on one of his sessions with Shaw and Erik is left alone in a corner of the cafeteria. “Be careful,” she tells him one day as they eat stale mashed potatoes, snooty even as she sits two heads shorter than him. Emma had been disturbed, very much so by Charles’ arrival- firstly because she’d been Shaw’s favourite telepath until Charles had moved in, and secondly because Charles had endeared himself even more to the rest of the mutants. Erik doesn’t know if its Stockholm Syndrome or something- darker- that makes Emma so unfailingly loyal to Shaw, so jealously furious at Charles for taking her cherished spot on his operating table and at Charles for unknowingly commandeering the weird community that had formed in Shaw’s institute, that no one should want to be a part of. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He sees you, all the time,” Emma had continued, eyes glittering and sharp. She had stabbed at her luncheon meat, a scowl disfiguring her face into something wilder. “He has eyes, and he wants everything. You can’t own </span>
  <em>
    <span>toys</span>
  </em>
  <span> in here.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He’s not my toy,” Erik had snapped and then moved away, disgusted.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Regardless, he’s bound and determined to keep Charles away from him. That resolve evaporates a month after the incident in the alcove when Shaw is injecting him with something that makes his skin crawl, fire popping behind his eyeballs and every bruise on his already aching body throbbing like individual points of fire. “Reform the sheet of metal, Erik,” Shaw says, and smiles. “Reform it into three individual balls.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There’s blood in Erik’s throat. He can’t think, can’t speak, can’t even fucking breathe as he looks at the sheet of metal, and he sees Shaw tap his fingers on the hammer on his desk and knows, just knows-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Erik! Calm your mind.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik jerks, stunned by the intrusion. The sheet of metal cracks in two. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Get </span>
  </em>
  <span>out </span>
  <em>
    <span>of my head, Xavier.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I can help you! Please, breathe. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Charles’ voice is a soothing balm of fresh, cool water in the raging inferno that is his head, like how his mother used to comfort him whenever he’d had a fever. Erik wants to lean into it, bathe in it like he’d be magically healed by it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>How did you-</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Felt your agony all the way from inside my room. I don’t know how Emma doesn’t feel it. Erik? You told me I’m not alone. You’re not alone, too. Please listen to me, Erik.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik breathes. Once, twice, sees Shaw’s hand raise to the hammer, and then lifts his own hand and separates the sheet of metal into three individual balls, attuned entirely to the cadence of Charles’ voice, English accented and calming like a well formed lullaby. He loses track of time after that, blacking out mentally for a good few seconds, everything white noise around him. He only manages to come to his senses later, finding himself in the adjourning bathroom of his room, hunched over the toilet bowl and puking up all the horrible cafeteria grade food he’d had for lunch, Charles uselessly rubbing his back. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You felt me all the way from the other side of the institute?” Erik finally asks, hoarse.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles shrugs. “You were screaming. I heard it.” He taps the side of his head, eyes big and guileless.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik turns his head and coughs up into the toilet some more, feeling the bile rake its way out. He feels Charles fold himself up and sit beside him, small but somehow unmistakeable in his presence.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’re friends,” Charles says, his tone matter-of-fact. Charles has a habit of doing that, stating things as a fact instead of as a hypothetical statement. Erik sort of likes that about him, the unassuming confidence. “Friends look out for each other, don’t they? I was looking out for you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So you were,” Erik murmurs. If he hadn’t been, that would have been yet another day of Erik letting Sebastian Shaw down again and promptly needing another trip to the infirmary. Fine control over his mutation was like an elusive dream slipping through his fingers, unreachable. As long as he has the memory of his mother’s head blowing back, the bullet piercing  her skull, Erik fears it will probably remain as such. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles beams at him. He’s missing a molar on the left side of his mouth, his smile appearing toothless. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mein Gott, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Erik thinks, resigned. “I’ve never had a friend before!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry,” Erik says dryly. “I can tell.” And then he hunches over the toilet bowl once again, Charles rubbing his back dutifully like his own personal manservant. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>please heed the warnings! tw for frequent reference to/implication of sexual assault, illegal experimentation on minors, canon-typical graphic violence</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Some days are good. Some days, they wake up and kiss each other in the kitchen, eat pancakes and argue a little, fuck in the bathtub and take a walk in the park, Charles making himself appear invisible. Some days end with a moonlit stroll and with dreams of the future, their scars a distant memory, Charles’ fingers skittering down the knobs of his spine as he presses his lips to his shoulder. Some days, Erik thinks they just might be able to make it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Other days start with Erik waking up with a shout, the echoes of a scream haunting his ears and the sound of Charles retching in the bathroom. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He throws the covers back, dashing to the door and throwing it open. There, in the far corner of the room and bent over the toilet bowl is Charles, his hair resembling a curtain that hides his face from the world, the sound of bile hitting the porcelain resounding through the room like a clanging bell. What little of Charles’ face he can see looks red with tears and exertion, and Erik feels wretched for not waking up earlier. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” he whispers, standing by the sink with his hands clenched. It takes about a few minutes more for the retching to stop and Charles makes his way up slowly, waving away Erik’s offer of help as he bends over the sink, splashing water on his face and into his mouth. He waits until Charles gives a slight nod in the mirror before pulling him into his arms, tucking his nose into his hair and smoothing his hands up and down his arms. “I was asleep, I didn’t realise-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s okay,” Charles says, slumping in his embrace before tapping his arms with his index finger. Nights like these, Charles can’t handle constant touch for too long. He’d explained it to Erik once, how it could catapult him back into a flashback he would have to claw his way out of. Erik lets him go, watching carefully as Charles makes his way to the bedroom, sitting on the sweat soaked sheets with a sigh. “These things happen, it’s alright.” There’s a frustration tinting his voice, though, as he blinks rapidly, listing slightly to the side.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Go to the guest bedroom, I’ll take the sheets for a wash,” Erik urges quietly, helping Charles up. Once he’s out, tottering through the door on unsteady feet, Erik kicks at the door in a fit of anger. All it serves to do is add on the pain of a stubbed toe in addition to the roiling feelings within him, and he curses quietly before hopping with his toe held aloft. He takes the sheets to the laundry basket, to be washed tomorrow when he isn’t feeling as exhausted and trampled down by the entire universe. The laundry room is blissfully empty, and for a second he slumps down to the floor and sits there, head against the side of the washing machine and eyes closed, just drifting.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a warm weight next to him, a hand sliding into his own and Erik instantly knows who it is, as certain of it as he is of the positions of the stars in the sky.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey,” he murmurs, bringing the hand up to his mouth for a light kiss. “I thought I told you to sleep.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Not without you,” Charles says. He sounds exhausted too, the edges of him scratched and raw. “I- I didn’t want to be alone.” His telepathy is scared and fidgety, an anxious panther prowling at the back of Erik’s mind, sniffing at the sides and pawing over the carefully organized chaos. Their nightmares are often and recurrent, but it’s the truly bad ones that get Charles like this, anxious, clingy and on edge. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell me,” Erik says. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You were in the red room with me,” Charles whispers, and Erik’s heart stutters to a stop. “He had you by the hair, said if I didn’t listen to him and do what he said, that he’d cut your throat right in front of me. I wanted to say yes, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>did, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but I said no, and then-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“And then?” Erik asks.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“And then he kills you,” Charles says flatly. His fingers tremble lightly in Erik’s hold, from the fear he’d been probably experiencing. “And then he does what he was too much of a coward to do in reality. And then I know I’m stuck in a nightmare of my own making.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The thought makes Erik’s blood boil. His hand clenches down on Charles’ without warning but to his credit, Charles doesn’t complain- instead, he shifts once, turning his head to press a kiss into Erik’s clothed shoulder.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You should have called me up.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You were sleeping so deeply,” Charles says, slightly amused now. Erik turns to look at him and Charles grins, raising his free hand to tap at his nose. “You were scowling, your nose all scrunched up. You looked rather cute. I didn’t have the heart to wake you.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not </span>
  <em>
    <span>cute,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Erik mutters, vaguely annoyed. Even so, he kisses Charles’ forehead, resting his lips for a scant few seconds before drawing apart again. There’s a light blue tinge beneath Charles’ eyes, the kind that’s been there for the better part of the decade or so that Erik’s known him in. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik had expected, foolishly enough, for the terror to end when Shaw had been killed. Shaw would be removed and then they’d be truly free, free of the horror tainting their lives. He’d been more the fool for it. Shaw, he’s figured out, is like the spectre that never really dies, haunting their steps doggedly like a rather persistent poltergeist. He’s there when Charles rushes to the toilet after a nightmare, he’s there when Erik catches the flash of the butter knife in the light and gets hurtled into a flashback, he’s there when Erik can’t sleep at night and walks out into the balcony to find Charles there too, legs dangling off the arm of the chair and a cigarette between his fingers, dried tear tracks on his cheeks. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Getting rid of someone doesn’t get rid of the impression,” Charles had said, when Erik had asked him about it. For someone two years younger than him, Charles often displayed a strange sort of aged wisdom that seemed superior. “You can get rid of the haunted house, but you can’t get rid of the ghost.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Exorcisms exist,” Erik had offered, then. In response Charles had snorted, leaning over to fiddle with the knobs of the radio. It had been the summer just before he’d turned nineteen, both of them on the way to Heathrow airport to catch the flight to Dusseldorf- he’d been struck by a debilitating illness that had left him shaken and fragile, and his fingernails were still translucent from it. Erik himself had a healing wound on the side of his ribs, sewn up hastily and throbbing like a wildfire. It had been a courtesy of one of Shaw’s sponsors, right before Erik had stuck a blade of metal through his throat.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Kind of defeats the point of destroying the house in the first place, doesn’t it?” Charles had parried softly, and then catching Erik’s look, snorts again. “Oh, don’t look at me like that- you </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>ask me for my opinion. I don’t regret killing Shaw and I doubt I ever will. I just wish it fixed more things than it really did.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik thinks he spends his whole life wishing, sometimes. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I want you to wake me whenever you get a nightmare,” Erik says now, tracing circles with his thumb. It’s not the first time he’s said this and he doesn’t think it will be the last. “I mean it, Charles. I don’t care how deeply I’d been sleeping.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“How can I wake you when I know you’ve been tired?” Charles asks, and then sighs when Erik sends him a look. “Fine, fine. I will, happy?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m never happy,” Erik says, but he smiles at Charles, scooting down so that he can rest his head on his lap. Charles’ hand goes to his fringe, combing through his strands in a repetitive manner that almost lulls him to sleep. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I certainly hope that’s not true,” Charles says absently. From this vantage point of view Erik can see how the collar of his sleep shirt sags. There’s a bruise nestled in the ridge of his collarbone, loving and deep. Erik remembers mouthing around the imprint of it, tending to it like a gardener to his rose bushes. “The good chases away the bad, most of the time.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik hopes it does. He thinks of Charles bent over the toilet bowl, hair falling to the side and covering his face from view. He thinks of himself the day before that, stepping on a hammer from the toolbox and instantly flashing back to when Shaw had done his best to shatter his kneecap. They don’t have much good in their lives, for all that they’re basking in their freedom. Even now, in the backroom in front of the washing machine, Shaw is in there with them. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve never been as happy as I have with you,” Erik says instead, drawing his hand up to his mouth for another kiss. “You know that. Or do you need me to remind you again?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Charles’ eyes sparkle at that, some life returning to them. “I wouldn’t be opposed to a reminder, schatz,” he says, and then shrieks with laughter when Erik jumps up and on top of him, knocking him to the floor. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>For his gift on his eleventh birthday, Charles asks Erik to teach him German. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Why the fuck would you want to learn it?” Erik asks, mystified. He’d made Charles a tiny metal horse, and Charles had blushed a furious red upon receiving it, running his fingers over the bronzed legs in a touch that Erik had felt. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Two years on, and Charles and Erik have become CharlesandErik, a package deal to everyone who knows them. Years on, Erik will realise that this had been a mistake- they should have expended a bit more effort into staying apart, as two separate entities, fooling the powers that be that their affection for each other hadn’t been as much as it is. How could he have known that Shaw would have his keen eye on all his charges? Would monitor all their movements with a well practiced eye? Would realise exactly how much he meant to Charles, exactly how much Charles meant to him?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In the present though, Erik foolishly doesn’t concern himself with this. Instead, he has other concerns on his mind- dodging Shaw’s sessions by feigning ill and on one memorable occasion, forcibly puking up lunch all over Shaw, as well as how weird he’s felt lately around Charles. There’s a curious swooping of his stomach around him, whenever he spots Charles smiling or laughing or giggling or just simply existing, staring off into space with a distant look in his eyes like he’s wont to do sometimes. “I get… lost, sometimes,” Charles had explained, when Erik had asked. “Many thoughts and minds, it’s just nice to- to drift.” Erik had felt a visceral sort of fear at that, at possibly losing Charles to his power, and it had left him almost breathless and white, Charles freaking out once he saw the pallor his skin had sunk into. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik doesn’t know what this means, this curious feeling he gets like he’s about to lose his lunch whenever these occurrences happen. He’d asked Emma, once, and all Emma had done was laugh in his face before bouncing off to find Angel to spread the gossip. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“You</span>
  </em>
  <span> know German,” Charles says. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“So?” Erik demands rudely. “Is the horse not enough?” He regrets it when Charles’ face crumples, fingers clenching around the horse. Erik feels like kicking himself when he sees Charles glance away, the corners of his lips downturned. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes it is,” Charles says quietly, and hugs the horse to his chest. “It’s- more than perfect. Sorry, Erik.” He moves to stand up, and Erik panics, instantly grabbing his arm and ignoring Charles’ flinch. There’s a cake under his bed that he’d sneaked out of the kitchens, a lighter he’d knicked off an orderly. Candles, too- that had been significantly harder to obtain but he’d managed it, asking Emma to plant a suggestion in one of the orderlies to get it from the convenience store the next town over. Emma had gotten a migraine afterwards, and ribbed Erik to hell and back for it. It’s a lot of preparation and he’s not prepared to let it all go to waste. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t- come on, Charles, I didn’t mean it like that,” Erik says hastily, and forces Charles to sit back down on the bed. He does so with a huff, a scowl sitting on his lips. “I’ll teach you German, alright? I just want to know why.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I told you,” Charles says huffily. “You know German, so I wanna know it too. It’s- it’s a thing, okay? I like learning new stuff.” He looks uncomfortable as he explains the reasoning, and Erik frowns at him for a bit before conceding. It seems like a bogus reason to him, but he’d do anything for Charles. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s very kind of you,” Charles says, blushing yet again. “But if you don’t want to teach me-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I was being stupid,” Erik says dismissively. He hesitates before leaning over and squeezing Charles’ hand, smiling again as Charles beams at him, sending over a wave of telepathic affection and warmth. There his stomach goes again, doing that curious jump and lurch that he still can’t figure out the reason behind. “Will you let me set the candles on the cake, first? I got the candles and everything.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, Erik! You shouldn’t have!” Charles shrieks, bouncing on the bed and looking downright gleeful at the sight of the small chocolate cake, the two candles set on top of it. When they’re done gorging themselves on the cake, bellies full and lying down on Erik’s bed in a daze, Charles turns on his side and throws his arm over Erik’s chest in an awkward half hug. “Thank you,” he whispers. “That was the best birthday </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Ever?” Erik asks, frowning. Sometimes Charles drops in little tidbits of his home life before Shaw’s prison and it makes Erik feel fierce on his behalf, the hints all pointing to a life that had been severely neglectful and downright abusive. “I traded in one hell for another,” Charles had said, once, shrugging, and the ensuing rage Erik had felt had caused all the metal in the room to melt into a puddle on the floor. Shaw had not been pleased.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Ever,” Charles promises, laying back down on his side of the bed again. “I wish all birthdays were like this.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And so begins their lessons in German- Charles has always been brilliant, and unsurprisingly picks up all the words for German pretty quickly. His pronunciation takes some work though; and it is then that Erik realises that Charles, very endearingly, has absolutely no patience for himself at all. More than once Erik has to talk him out of the brink of tears after failing to get a word right more than five times in a row and far from feeling irritated by it, Erik finds it hilarious.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not </span>
  <em>
    <span>funny</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Erik, stop laughing,” Charles whines when Erik tries to stop his giggles from escaping by clapping a hand over his mouth. His lips twitch, though, as he takes in Erik’s shoulders shaking, the hand clenched over his mouth as the intense hue of his eyes soften from that hard shade it had been at to something significantly more gentle. “Come on, come </span>
  <em>
    <span>on, </span>
  </em>
  <span>stop laughing and tell me what it sounds like!” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay, okay,” Erik says, breathless from laughter. Charles is smiling at him, eyes twinkling and cheeks flushed from mirth and Erik finds himself absently thinking that he’d do anything to bundle these memories up into little pockets that he’d delve into and cherish years from now- considering that they’d ever get out of this hellhole, of course. The lessons- and Charles- become his sole reason for living day to day, the one bright spot amidst the pain brought upon him by Shaw. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>During their tenth or so lesson- Erik’s barely keeping count anymore- Charles stops for a break. They sit there and doodle in silence for a while, Charles laying on his stomach on the bed and drawing nonsensical shapes on his paper and Erik seated on the floor by his head, idly sketching a rough outline of Charles’ side profile before Charles suddenly asks, “Will you take me to Germany one day?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“That depends on whether we survive,” Erik says, and blanches, reconsidering his words. He glances up at Charles- just because he’s accepted his own death doesn’t mean the same needs to be true for Charles. In fact, he’d do anything for the reverse to happen to Charles, the only bright spot in this ceaseless pit of darkness.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Charles doesn’t pay attention to him. He’s twirling his pencil between his fingers. “I want to go to Germany,” he says wistfully. “Do they have the- the uh, sau- the sour-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Sauerkraut?” Erik asks, amused. “Of course they do. I’ll buy as much jars of Sauerkraut as you’d like.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Charles is quiet again, for so long Erik thinks he’s lost track of their conversation. Charles does that a lot, so much so that Erik’s grown used to it. After the first time Charles had explained it, Erik has grown significantly less worried about it- it is something that Emma does too, abruptly losing the thread of the conversation halfway and wandering off in a daze. A telepath thing, Erik had figured. “Shaw was looking at me funny today,” Charles says suddenly, and Erik jumps.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Funny?” Erik asks, frowning.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In response, Charles shrugs. “Yeah, he just looked- his thoughts…” his voice trails off, his features twisting in a scowl. Erik waits, patient, his index finger tracing circles on Charles’ thumb. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Charles withdraws his hands, sitting up and drawing his knees up to his chin. He looks like a tightly knit ball. Erik suddenly wants him to unfurl, to go back to the relaxed state he was in before so much even his teeth ache with it. “I want to get out,” he says softly. “I feel very scared here. Sometimes, I- I can’t sleep.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik swallows roughly. There’s no manual for this- what to tell your best friend when you know both of you are never getting out of this captivity you’ve found yourselves in. “I’ll make you a pinky promise, how about that?” he asks instead, holding up a pinky. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Erik,” Charles snorts instantly, the tension leaking out of his shoulders as he shoves at Erik’s hand with his foot. “We’re too old for pinky promises. I’m</span>
  <em>
    <span> eleven.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course, I forgot what a wise, old man you are,” Erik says solemnly. He dodges Charles’ kick again, holding out his pinky and waiting until Charles heaves a put-upon sigh, linking his own pinky with his. Charles isn’t truly annoyed, though- there’s a steady stream of affection and warmth coming his way from him, a tinge of sweetness to it that almost becomes unbearable. Erik will not trade this for anything in the world, not even for freedom. What’s freedom, at the cost of bearing the weight of loneliness?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I pinky promise you that I’ll be with you forever,” Erik says in a low voice. “Nothing will make me leave your side. If you run away, I’ll hunt you down. Just you and me, forever.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Just you and me,” Charles intones, eyes wide and dreamy. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Mein Schatz.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Did I say it right?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik has to smile softly at that. Charles has been having trouble, especially, with saying the word </span>
  <em>
    <span>schatz, </span>
  </em>
  <span>stumbling over the pronunciation and getting his tongue tied up in knots. He’s intent on getting it right, though, almost furiously mumbling it to himself so often Janos- who never speaks otherwise- had asked him once if he was feeling okay. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Got it right,” Erik says, and is treated to the wondrous sight that is Charles’ toothy grin. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The words that Charles says stay with him, though, all through next week as he turns them over in his head over and over. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Shaw was looking at me funny today. I feel scared here. Will you take me to Germany? </span>
  </em>
  <span>As the days pass by Charles withdraws into himself, turning into a shadow of himself, pale and like he could sink into the walls and disappear, if not followed around. It makes Erik feel true fear, not unlike the one when he’d had to stand in Shaw’s office and move the coin with his mother standing behind him, a gun held to her temple. It makes Erik, eventually, ask Shaw for longer sessions with him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Really?” Shaw says, amused. “I was under the impression you didn’t like our time together.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I just have a condition,” Erik says, heart banging in his throat. “My time for Charles. You spend the time with him with me instead.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It had been the wrong thing to say. Shaw’s eyes go flint-like and cold instead, his hands clenching on the scalpel he’d been holding. There’s an insidious venom in his eyes that makes Erik shrink into his restraints, the cold hard table beneath him a sudden barrier from Shaw. “I’ll give </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>a condition, my dear boy,” he says, voice hard like diamonds. “Not one toe out of line, or I’ll take any issues I have out on the young Mr Xavier. Do </span>
  <em>
    <span>we</span>
  </em>
  <span> have a deal, or are you going to keep talking back to me?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik frowns, even as his heart thunders. “But-” his voice ends in a choked off scream as Shaw slides the scalpel in, face a blank canvas. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Not one word,” Shaw hisses, as Erik continues to scream, pain coursing through him at a rate that feels like it might reduce his insides to ash. “Not one word, understand?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik is alone and nursing his bleeding arm later out in the courtyard- fenced off with armed guards instructed to shoot on sight as one of the other kids imprisoned had found out the hard way during Erik’s first week, the only land outside the institute they’re allowed to roam- before he senses someone running to him, moments before Charles takes him by surprise by plowing into him. Erik blinks, dazed and on his back in the grass, and then catches Charles’ fists in his hands a split second before they ram into his nose. Charles’ face is twisted into a mix of fury and rage, eyes narrowed into slits and mouth screwed up in a snarl. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>believe </span>
  </em>
  <span>you!” Charles shouts. “What were you thinking? </span>
  <em>
    <span>What were you thinking?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>He aims another punch at Erik’s ribs, this time, right on top of the bruise Shaw had left earlier. Red floods his vision momentarily, and he’s unable to avoid letting out a curse so foul that if any of the orderlies had been nearby they would have probably reprimanded him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Charles,” Erik snaps, and finally grabs his wrists. Charles stops moving, sitting on his stomach and glaring so fiercely he looks as if he might burst into flames any second. Erik’s never seen him this furious before. “Charles, stop! What brought this on?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t- you don’t know, oh, that’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>rich, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Erik,” Charles snarls, trying to move his hands and hit him again. “Let go of me, let go of me so that I can </span>
  <em>
    <span>kick you </span>
  </em>
  <span>because god knows you fucking deserve it you fuck-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It’s then that Erik suddenly gets it. Charles, after all, is powerful, and Shaw is if anything, highly manipulative. Charles, seething at him, projects a scene out to him- Shaw smiling down from the vantage viewpoint of Charles lying on the table in what looks like a room with blood red walls, leather straps biting into his wrists and legs. There’s a strange hunger in his eyes, one Erik has never seen before, one that makes the bile crawl up in his throat. “Your sweet friend Erik Lehnsherr tried to exchange your time on this table for his,” he drawls. “Breathe another word of what happens between us during these sessions and you will never see him again, do I make myself </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfectly </span>
  </em>
  <span>fucking clear?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik is abruptly kicked out of the memory with all the force of someone kicking at a soccer ball, Charles glaring at him again.”What has he been doing to you?” Erik asks, stunned. “What goes on during these sessions?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Like I’m ever telling you, anyway,” Charles snaps, going lax in his grip. There’s an unhappy purse to his mouth, a defeated slump in his shoulders. It makes Erik want to shake him and scream. What’s the use of it, if only one of them is always fighting Shaw?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“So you’re just going to give up?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m going to </span>
  <em>
    <span>survive,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Charles snaps. “You think we’re in any position to argue with Shaw? The same man who gutted Allerdyce like a pig when he tried to stage an escape? We all saw how well that had turned out!” That had occurred a year into Erik’s captivity, Shaw stabbing Allerdyce with the same butter knife the kid had nicked from the kitchens and then gesturing at his remains to the rest of the shocked students watching. Allerdyce had almost made it too, if it hadn’t been for Emma alerting Shaw to his escape. No one had liked Emma anyway, but that stunt had made everyone actively hate her with a passion. You had to be truly fucked in the head, to give up the evil you didn’t know to the evil you did. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>No one, that is, except for Charles. Incredibly, despite Emma’s one-sided rivalry with him Charles had somehow won her over by the end of his first year at the institute and Erik has to tell himself it's not jealousy that makes his hackles raise high and defensive whenever he sees their heads bent together in the cafeteria, Emma’s perfectly coiffed, blonde one mixing together with Charles’ chestnut coloured one to make a pretty picture. Charles had shrugged, when Erik had asked him why he still bothered to talk to Emma. “Shaw took us, that’s true, but Shaw saved her,” he says. “Her father, he- anyway, it’s not my story to tell. But she thinks Shaw’s her- y’know, her saving grace.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik had stared at him. “And that makes it okay?” he had demanded, incandescently furious. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Charles had retorted, arms folded in that petulant way he got sometimes. “But it’s not her fault, and it's not up to us to fix her either- just to be there for her.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Charles jabs a finger into his collarbone now, still clearly furious. “This is a two way street, Erik!” he snaps. “You and me, you said. Fucking act like it, then! Or do you think we’re better off without each other?” It’s a rhetorical question, but the fear is there in his eyes. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The blood in Erik runs cold. “Of course not,” he says, subdued. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t sacrifice yourself for me,” Charles says, more quietly now. The fight goes out of him, bit by bit until he’s almost slumping face first onto his chest. “I’m not- if something happens to you, I’ll fucking kill myself, hear me?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Don’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>talk like that,” Erik hisses, giving the wrists he’s still holding on to a slight jerk. It’s not fair of Charles to give him an ultimatum like this, for Charles to know which parts of Erik are the most vulnerable and burrow in deep. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Scheibe, </span>
  </em>
  <span>wenn du das tust-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Then protect me,” Charles says, slipping off Erik and lying down on his back beside him, “by protecting yourself.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Easier said than done. Charles doesn’t know, Charles doesn’t know how much Erik adores him, how Erik sees him as the fixed point of his orbit, the one good thing in his life he needs to hold on to before it gets ripped away from his hands, ephemeral. Charles thinks its easy, looking at him doing god knows what at the behest of Shaw. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t say it was easy,” Charles sighs. “But you’ll do it anyway, because it’s the kind of person you are and because you listen to me.” That latter bit, said without hesitation and without doubt- because Erik </span>
  <em>
    <span>will</span>
  </em>
  <span> listen to him. All they have in this world are each other and no one else. It’s not even a survival tactic at this point- it’s a way to live, exist and simply be because Erik knows that without Charles he would have gone truly insane in this madhouse, untethered and violent. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik’s quiet for a while, and then he says, “You still won’t tell me what he does to you?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Nice try, but no,” Charles scoffs. He’s scooted closer to Erik, though, left hand sliding down his arm to entangle itself with the fingers of his right hand. The warmth of him is like a soothing balm, constantly pulsing like its own heat source. “I don’t want to risk either of us like that, ever again.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Charles-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Please,” Charles whispers softly. “We have to survive.” He’s projecting his fear and desperation, so strongly that Erik’s limbs tremble and a light pounding starts up in his temples. Charles doesn’t have a lid over his powers yet, clumsy with them still like a newborn baby but anyone with eyes can see how frightfully powerful he is already. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik knows he himself is no different. The rate at which the metal in each room sings to him is evidence enough. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>powerful. And soon, if he’s diligent and disciplined, he’ll be so powerful that he will be able to break himself and Charles out of here, crack Shaw’s twisted husk of flesh into two and save themselves. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“When I’m strong enough,” Erik says, “I’ll kill him.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Charles doesn’t say anything. He turns his head to the sky instead, sunlight falling onto his face and turning his hair golden brown. His expression had been difficult to parse through, then. It’s only later, when Erik’s back in his own bed with his injured arm stretched out before him gingerly, that he realises it had been one of loss.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I like to think there’s this world,” Charles says once, going on his side and propping himself up on his elbow. His fringe falls into his eyes, covering parts of them and letting the blue peek out like glimpses of the sun. Erik will have to offer to trim them soon, sometime. “A world where I’m different. I’d like to think I’m a professor of some sort, a genius.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik brushes his hair back with one hand, twirling one lock around his finger and tugging lightly. “Tell me more, professor.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Charles smiles, the particular kind of smile he gets whenever Erik indulges him on one of his tangents. “I think I’m- more whole. More nice. I think I have manners, for one. Maybe I’m more tolerant of, of things. I’d certainly never be a killer.” He aligns his left hand with Erik’s, placing them palm to palm and grinning when Erik entangles his fingers with his own, drawing concentric shapes on his palm with a light, ticklish touch. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you think I would be?” Erik asks, interested. Charles as a professor is something he can see, oddly enough. A soft academic, in worn cardigans and nursing his tea in one hand, leather bound tomes in the other. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I think you’re a spy,” Charles says, smiling brightly. “A hitman. You go after bad people, left and right. You terrify everyone, but you inspire them too. To be- greater than themselves.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ve thought about this a lot, schatz,” Erik says, surprised. Of the two of them, Charles is of course the one more inclined to indulge in his fantasies. It’s rare of him, though, to be this involved in them. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“A world like that would be nice, I think,” Charles says, a distant look in his eyes. “Us as opposites of each other.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“And this world?” Erik asks, quiet. The sunlight falls on Charles’ face, turning his freckles golden. His smile slips away.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“In this world,” Charles says, his voice steady, “I have nightmares, and I can’t- I can’t breathe, sometimes. I have you, and then I have Shaw. And I wake up wanting to watch the world and everyone in it burn.” His eyes lift to Erik’s, wet. “I think that makes me a bad person.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Erik says, after a beat. And then he topples Charles over, swallowing his surprised shout with a kiss, bearing down on him and nosing down his jaw. This is where he and Charles differ, fundamentally- Charles shrinks away from his negativity, his fatalistic tendencies, a stain of dirt on his perfect, glass-clear facade. Erik revels in it, instead, the loathing he feels powering him from within and making him feel stronger as each day slips past. “But you shouldn’t ask me. I can’t be expected to remain impartial.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I suppose not,” Charles murmurs. His eyes shine bright in the dim of the room. “Do you-” he bites his lip and goes silent. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik withdraws, pushing himself up on his hands and hovering over Charles. “Do I what?” he prompts gently. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you think we find each other?” Charles asks. “In all these other worlds, hypothetically speaking.” There’s a troubled press to his lips, to the way he frowns in anxiety. The dread for Erik’s answer is pouring off him in waves, seeping into Erik’s connection with him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Erik knows what he means, of course. Azazel has called them weirdly and unhealthily codependent, before. “Would you even love him without Shaw?” he had asked once, accusatory, and Erik had barely restrained himself from socking Azazel in the jaw even if it had been a valid question. Was their love borne out of circumstance, or has it always been predestined by nature? </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Three years on from the institute, though, and Erik is still just as in love with, just as awestruck by Charles as he’d been during those few horror-stricken years. Every single time he kisses Charles feels like the very first time, every single time he lays eyes on Charles it feels like his world has righted itself again, everything as it should be. His breaths in time are attuned to Charles and sometimes without the sight of those beautiful clear eyes he feels as if they might completely disappear from his lungs. That has to count for something, right? What does it matter how they fell in love, when they have been able to last this long? </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s your problem right there, schatz,” Erik says instead, pressing a light kiss on top of his nose. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Hypothetical. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Focus on the real. Right here, just you and me. Just us.” Their mantra, that had sustained them for all these years. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“The real,” Charles breathes, as Erik’s mouth travels down his chest, over the raised lines of scars and down his navel, the long line of hair leading to his cock. “Just you and me.” His hand travels to Erik’s hair and rests there, his touch as light as a feather. “I can do that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>updates will be fixed every monday or so. chapter length will also vary- this one ends here because it felt right ending it here. also a few things that i should prob clarify:<br/>a) this story is from erik's pov, so there is a highly unreliable narration. he's seen (in the first chapter and this one) to often describe his trauma as making him and charles 'less' of people. i want to point out that he's a victim of trauma who's also not sought help for the issues that he's facing, and our trauma does not, in fact, make us any less of a whole version of ourselves<br/>b) you'll notice that none of the kids have suppression collars on, this is because first off they Are kids, so their control over powers is highly volatile. for eg: azazel is a kid in this, and can't teleport over long distances- he's also well aware that saving his own skin will mean he's hunted down by the institute for the rest of his life. shaw has let them loose because he knows they are nowhere near as powerful to fight him off and win now. also there are guards posted all over the site to prevent them from escaping.</p>
<p>thats about it. thank u for the lovely feedback to the previous chapter, and pls leave me a comment + kudos, they'll make my day &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>this is... a monster of a chapter. i was initially going to separate it into two chapters but i just got too lazy</p><p>please heed the warnings! tw for explicit description of panic attack, explicit self harm, implied/referenced sexual assault, explicit description of the consequences of said assault, description of torture on minors</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Their biggest fight happens when Charles is fourteen and Erik is sixteen. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It had been growing on them slowly, an encroaching argument that creeps in on them bit by bit, Sixteen, specifically for Erik, is an awkward and awful age- full of growing limbs and overwhelming feelings and nights spent confused with the haze of strange dreams. Sixteen is spent with Erik suddenly discovering the blue of Charles’ eyes, the curve of his lips as he darted out his tongue to swipe at them- every five seconds, honestly- the way he’d finally grown into his medical grade scrubs, somehow gorgeous when Erik himself had looked drab. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sixteen is when Erik discovers he’s attracted to his best friend, and hates himself for it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What’s the problem?” Azazel had asked, confused, when Erik had explained it to him. Like how Shaw had refused to make the lunch lady in the cafeteria serve him kosher, enforcing on him anglicised Christian traditions that just added on to Erik’s growing list of reasons why he would be putting a coin through Shaw’s head, Azazel had been expressly forbidden from communicating in Russian at all. The result had been a forced proficiency in English that Azazel clearly hated. “He’s pretty. Not bad looking. You know, Angel also said-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>care </span>
  </em>
  <span>what Angel said!” Erik had yelled. “He’s fourteen, Azazel! Two years younger than me! He’s a kid!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“A kid,” Azazel had repeated, disbelieving. He’d almost looked as if he wanted to burst out into laughter at Erik’s expense. Just like the rest of the universe, these days. “What are you, sixty?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I have a responsibility,” Erik snarls, and then pauses. “What did Angel say?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That she would do anything to tap that ass,” Azazel had replied, grinning, and then dodged the piece of metal shrapnel Erik had immediately hurled at him, teleporting away with a cackle.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It would have been so simple if it had been just attraction, but Erik knows better. That curious feeling that he’d experienced every single time Charles had smiled at him, laughed in his direction, jokingly punched his shoulder or clambered on top of him, messily smudging a kiss onto his forehead- that hadn’t been boneheaded teenage attraction, the simple banal hormone fueled drive everyone experiences when they’re sixteen and locked into an enclosed space with a bunch of other teenagers with nowhere else to go. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You don’t get it yet, do you?” Emma had sneered at him one day, when Erik had still been grappling with his discovery. They’d been alone in the cafeteria, everyone else off on their sessions, Emma in a towering bad mood for whatever reason. “There is no you without Charles. There is no Charles without </span>
  <em>
    <span>you. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Frankly, it’s fucking annoying.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I can’t be in love with him,” Erik had whispered, horrified. Of all the places to fall in love in, he’d chosen the very worst. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Emma’s eyes had softened, and that had made Erik feel even more awful, if that had been at all possible. “There’s no fooling Shaw,” she says, expression grave and slightly mournful. Rich of her, when she hangs onto Shaw’s every word like a limpet.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Maybe there isn’t, and it’s all a futile cause, but Erik will be damned if he doesn’t at least try anyway. Charles shouldn’t be subject to even more pain because of Erik’s inconvenient heart- there are days, when he comes back from his still secret sessions with Shaw withdrawn and white, and on those days that he spends curled into Erik’s shoulder afterward, catatonic and unresponsive, Erik thinks he might lose him forever. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s an easy decision to make- have Charles distant but alive, or keep him close and dead. Erik decides promptly to draw away from Charles, the only person he’s ever warmed up to in his entire life, and spends every waking moment with Azazel instead, shifting his focus. That had been the first mistake, going to Azazel instead of just being open with the same boy he’d spent his entire childhood with. The effects of that decision hadn’t been easy to live through- Charles had been hurt at first, constantly attempting to approach Erik and giving him looks of disbelief at being rebuffed in turn. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You can’t possibly have another session in the training room,” he says incredulously, as Erik backs away after yet another attempt. “I just saw Janos go in there!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I- I’m accompanying him. Shaw is fostering team spirit,” Erik replies hastily, before sprinting away. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles had then become incandescently furious, demanding to talk to Erik, and asking what is it that he’s done that’s so wrong. Erik almost gives in then, because the pleading is worse than the shouting, the pleading makes Erik want to give in and pull Charles into his arms and keep him nestled inside his heart like a well-kept secret. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m in love with you, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Erik wants to shout. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Can’t you see that? </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Just tell me,” Charles begs Erik, his eyes wide and imploring when he manages to catch him in his own room one day, Azazel nowhere in sight. He stands at the doorway, resolutely twisting his shirt within his fingers, and Erik keeps his gaze focused firmly on his own hands as they restlessly make a figurine from leftover metal. A phoenix, this time round. “Did I- did I say something?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No,” Erik answers. He looks up at Charles for a moment who’s staring back, an expression of heartbreak written so fucking clearly across his face. Anyone from a mile away can see the affection Charles has for him- but Erik will never presume it to be love. He will never be that kind of man. Charles pulls the material of his shirt between his fingers, biting his bottom lip and turning it shiny with spit, and Erik has to look away for a while, his own skin prickling uncomfortably like he’s been set on fire. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It isn’t fair. It isn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>fair- </span>
  </em>
  <span>Erik didn’t ask Charles to be his Achilles’ heel. And now Erik must protect them both, and inevitably hurt them in the process. Survival, Charles had said all those years ago, and now Erik understands what he had meant. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I just- we need some time apart,” Erik says softly, trying to look as if all the words falling out of his mouth weren’t shattering his soul apart. “Alright?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, not alright,” Charles snaps. He stares back at Erik, stepping closer, his shoulders tense and eyes so glittering hard Erik thinks he might have picked up that particular look from Emma. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It is then that Erik makes his second mistake. Charles probes his mind, a gentle nudge and Erik instantly draws his shields up, so focused on locking the door definitively airtight that he doesn’t notice Charles’ nose is bleeding until Charles coughs. Erik’s head snaps up to see the blood wetting the top of Charles’ lip, his eyes narrowed in pain and heartbreak and something else. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That had been the mistake- Erik and Charles, after all, have been living in each other’s heads for seven years. That is the kind of closeness that fosters a connection, deep and tight. Furthermore, their powers weren’t fully mature yet- Charles was still a child with his telepathy, still figuring out how to make it work at his will, still testing the limits of it. Pushing him out like that with his shields had hurt him, like a hammer banging on the gavel. This is an unavoidable fact that Erik doesn’t register until he sits there and sees the blood drip from Charles’ nose, staining the collar of his shirt in patches. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik’s eyes widen. “Charles,” he says hoarsely. “Charles-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You only had to say no,” Charles hisses, “and I would have listened. I’m- I’m not Shaw.” He wrenches the door open behind him, one hand on the doorknob, and dashes out of the room, ignoring Erik’s yells after him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After that, Charles starts ignoring him in return. He spends his days looking quietly betrayed and dejected, spending time with Emma instead who’d also started looking at Erik like he was the scum of the earth. If what Erik had wanted was this, victory tastes hollow and sour on his tongue- he’s almost unbearably angry, venting his rage onto everything. Charles won’t even </span>
  <em>
    <span>look</span>
  </em>
  <span> at him, not when they pass in the corridors, not when he sits in the corner of the cafeteria with Emma, not when their sessions in the training room coincide and Erik’s starts right when his ends. His profile stays turned away, his eyes kept to the space beside Erik and Erik feels incandescently furious and devastated in one, wanting to fix what he knew he had to break. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Strangely enough, this is when his control over the metal within his reach improves. “Well done, my boy,” Shaw says, impressed, when Erik manages to deflect and reform the sixteen butcher knives hurled at him into a crude shape of a hammer. He picks the hammer up, tossing it from hand to hand while Erik daydreams about smashing it through his skull. “Consider your father- very impressed.”</span>
  <span></span><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not my father,” Erik says, more exhausted than anything else. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Such backtalk,” Shaw says lazily, but doesn’t punch him in the ribs as he usually would. “I knew that Xavier boy was holding you behind. He, on the other hand…” he clicks his tongue, looking heavily disappointed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik wants to ask, so much that he’s physically aching with it. For a second, he wishes he himself had telepathy so he could read Shaw’s mind. Instead, he keeps silent and waits. Shaw likes nothing more than the sound of his own voice. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Eventually, Shaw sighs. “I thought he was my greatest student,” he tells Erik conversationally. “But he's been shaping up to be quite the failure recently. I simply don’t know what’s wrong with him. Perhaps- more sessions-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik’s heart leaps dangerously, and he can keep silent no longer. “Maybe he’s just tired,” he offers hastily, trying his best to keep his voice level. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Shaw stares at him. “You know what’s wrong with him?” Shaw demands. “I was under the impression you two were no longer- close.” The last word is said with an inflection, filthy and full of implications. It makes Erik stiffen, reminding him of what is at stake. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No,” Erik says roughly. “He’s too juvenile for me. Too much of a runt.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So cold! Very well, Erik,” Shaw guffaws. “You’ve made your point. Off with you, now.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik beats a hasty retreat, ripping the door open only to find Charles standing at the door. He’s not sad, or upset, Erik realises with a jolt- he’s indifferent. His eyes are closed off sapphires, blank and impenetrable, and his chin is lifted in a stubborn tilt, eyebrows drawn together. He looks as if he’d heard what Erik had said, and couldn’t really care for it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>No, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Erik wants to say. </span>
  <em>
    <span>No, I’m protecting us, read me, read me-</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Charles-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know why you’d want to speak to me,” Charles says. “Basically a runt, aren’t I? Just juvenile.” He shoves past Erik and when Erik opens his mouth to speak, closes the door to the room in his face. It slams shut with a bang, nearly smashing Erik’s nose in.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That had been Erik’s third mistake. If Charles had been ignoring him before, it gets worse now- Erik doesn’t see hide nor hair of him in the next few weeks. He spends his days trying to think as loud as possible of the reasons for doing so- bar him being in love, of course- until Emma complains about him giving her a migraine. Charles doesn’t respond, though- neither does he return when Erik lowers his shields, that part of his head feeling cold and empty and void. The dining hall is always devoid of Charles just when he arrives, and Erik is left feeling bereft, successful and yet devastated by the rift he had created. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I thought this was what you wanted,” Azazel says, his eyes knowing when he walks in on Erik angrily stomping in the courtyard, kicking at the grass with a glare on his face so ferocious it had everyone else giving him a wide berth. Earlier in the day Erik had made at least five of the other students cry, before Emma had finally banished him to the courtyard with a withering glare. “You know, him hating you and probably wanting you dead.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Erik says, closing his eyes. He remembers Charles pulling him into the courtyard exactly four months prior, Charles kissing his cheek and blabbering on about how he’d managed to crack through Emma’s defenses as Shaw had watched and how Emma had been so proud of him for it. He remembers listening until he’d dozed off, head pillowed on Charles’ lap as Charles had bent his head to press his lips again to Erik’s forehead. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They had grown up in captivity. How could they have known that this wasn’t normal? Suddenly a switch had gone off in Erik’s brain and it was like none of these gestures were innocent, all of them perfectly designed to send Erik out of his mind. He much prefers living in blissful ignorance of his love for Charles to this hell, the arch of his crooked nose and the exact tint of his blue eyes imprinted into Erik’s memory so deeply he could sketch it from memory if he wanted to, even if he hasn’t seen a single hint of him in a month. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Erik repeats. He thinks of that metal phoenix in his room, unconsciously made for Charles. Charles would probably chuck it back in his face, if he tried giving it to him. “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>know. </span>
  </em>
  <span>But I love him. I want him away from me and I want to hold him.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Azazel says, clapping his shoulder in a show of fake companionship. “I think you are clinically insane, but okay.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That’s not the only thing that changes in the aftermath of their not-quite argument. Rumours of Charles’ troubles in accessing his telepathy gets spread across the mansion, reports of him being unable to train as effectively as he used to, becoming weaker and more unstable than even the newest student in the mansion. On some days he’d barely be able to read anyone else’s mind and on others he spends the day holed up in his room, curled in on himself from a migraine so debilitating he can’t even get out of bed. During the first of these occurrences Erik attempts to enter Charles’ room himself, an abode he’s always had access to, and finds his way barred by Emma. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He doesn’t want to see you,” she says, bored and inspecting her nails. It’s a facade, however- she’s tense, skin tense and eyes drawn tight. “Leave.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The first instinct Erik has- will always have- is to fight. This is different, however- he looks at Emma, her eyes glittering and fierce like she wouldn’t hesitate to throw a punch at Erik, if it came to it. When had it come to this, Erik wonders, Emma protecting Charles from him instead? He swallows, instead, backing down and stepping away. “I only ever wanted to protect him from Shaw,” he says hoarsely. “And he-” </span>
  <em>
    <span>And he’s younger than me. And he deserves someone better, someone whole, someone not shattered. He deserves someone to hold him together. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sugar,” Emma says, heavily, “Just leave.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik does. At the end of the corridor he drags a hand over his face, punches the wall until his knuckles split open, and wonders why doing the right thing seems to be ripping his life apart. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik wakes up on the street. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Not necessarily on the street- the pebbled pavement beside it, right outside a row of deluxe houses clearly belonging to the top one percent of the neighbourhood. He doesn’t know where he is. He’s never been in this part of the town before, he realises. Both of them had always confined themselves to the more financially inaccessible parts of the area, knowing it would keep them under the radar too. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’s freezing cold, too. Erik pats at his pants, and then curses when he realises he must have sleepwalked. It’s a horrible habit for him, one he hadn’t been able to forget after his and Charles’ biggest fight. The aftermath of what that fight had led to had been severe, had ended up with Charles having scars on his mind and Erik- Erik having-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik swallows. He can do this. He’s not a kid anymore, shivering and alone against the might of a shadowy institute. He can save himself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Before he can take one more step, there’s a voice in his head. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Erik? Mein Schatz?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik breathes. “Charles,” he gasps. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Stay there, Erik. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Charles’ voice is confident, practised with just the tiniest hint of fear. They both know the drill by now, but he knows how much this still terrifies Charles out of his mind, whenever he slips away from bed and disappears into the night.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik stays, lets Charles rummage around in his head for a while longer. There’s about a beat of silence before Azazel pops up in front of him, jaunty hat affixed on his head and all decked out in khakis and a flowery shirt. Azazel really had the fashion sense of a colour blind man who spent his whole life in the sales section of the dollar store. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You look ugly,” Erik tells him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Strong words for your saviour,” Azazel says, grinning. “Now, hold on to my hand like a good boy, and I’ll get you back to your keeper.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Fuck you,” Erik says, but acquiesces. It takes Azazel about a second but with a pop they are back in the living room of the apartment, and Charles is immediately hurling himself into his arms, patting him down with his eyes so wild he looks slightly feral. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re okay,” he breathes. “You are, aren’t you? Erik-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hush, liebling,” Erik murmurs, taking his hands into his own. They’re trembling, minute shakes that would go unnoticed with anyone else. With him, Charles has always let his defences down. “I’m okay, I’m okay.” He raises his eyes up to Azazel, who looks bored at the proceedings. “Thank you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Azazel shrugs his shoulders. “He was about to take my head off. I did all of us a favour.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I wasn’t,” Charles protests, but clings to Erik tightly. “You know, I can make tea-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No thanks,” Azazel snorts, taking a step back. “It’s five in the morning for you two. The jump back will tire me out, going from Germany to LA. It’s fine,” he adds, seeing the look in Erik’s eyes. “No one else I’d do it for.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Still, it’s not as if Erik wants to be a burden on his friends. One day, they all know Erik’s going to sleepwalk his way out of everyone’s reach. What is he going to do, then, out there on his own? He hasn’t been truly alone, not really since he met Charles in Shaw’s house. “I’m still sorry,” Erik says softly. “You shouldn’t have to-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And I’ll say what I always say whenever I have to collect you from these trips, and you bore me with this wailing,” Azazel says, clapping Erik on the shoulder. “Go fuck yourself.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Azazel ends up staying the night, cajoled in bemusement by Charles who insists on clearing up their spare bedroom for him. At night Charles clings to Erik like a limpet, slinging one leg over him and laying his head on his shoulder. Erik grips on to his waist, enclosing it with both arms and feels him shake in his arms. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m okay,” Erik breathes into the silence. “I’m sorry.” Truth be told, he’d feeling very shaken himself. A shiver rackets its way up his spine as if in reminder, and Charles tightens his grip even more.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“‘S not your fault, don’t apologise,” Charles says. His fingernails are digging marks into Erik’s shoulders, deep and bloody. Erik doesn’t stop him. The nights when he sleepwalks are hard on both of them. It’s a reminder of their biggest fight, and what exactly both of them went through as a result of it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik brushes the tips of his fingers over the jut of Charles’ shoulder, remembering.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s not your fault,” Charles says. His words are more slurred now, as he drifts off to sleep, but his grip doesn’t lighten. Erik is thankful for it. “Not your fault.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The next day sees all of them coming awake at noon, Azazel and Erik in the balcony with their separate coffees while Charles stays in the kitchen, preparing lunch. Charles is awkward in the morning, jerky and stiff in his movements but bussing a kiss that feels rough and unsteady against Erik’s forehead when Erik comes to tell him he and Azazel will be out on the balcony. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s windy,” Charles says. “Don’t stay out too late, you might catch a cold.” His fingers worry at the fabric of his apron- a gaudy thing exclaiming “Kiss The Cook!” Braddock had sent it over for Erik one day, proclaiming it to be an early gift for Hanukkah, along with a bottle of Glenfiddich’s finest. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Really, Charles, I think it would be fine-” Erik pauses, seeing the look in Charles’ eyes. There’s a muted fear still pouring off him, a strange desperation in the way he twists the fabric of the apron between his fingers. “We won’t stay out for long.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They stand out in the balcony in companionable silence, the noises of Charles banging around in the kitchen echoing behind them, before Azazel asks, “Are you two happy?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s a non sequitur and clearly an obvious segue into what Azazel really wants to ask, so Erik sighs. “Just ask what you really want to.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s just- you two are so removed,” Azazel says, a hint of reproach in his tone. “Out here in this pretty little village, not involved in anything- you do know that gun bill got passed, did you?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik does. He and Charles had sat there as Congress had let that bill pass on allowing human officers more firepower than mutant ones. Just to even out the odds, the spokesperson had said blandly into the camera. Erik had shut off the TV then, Charles rubbing calming circles into his shoulders.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“They’ll never accept us,” Erik had said bluntly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You have to give them time,” Charles had said softly. He’d reached up, then, pressing a kiss to Erik’s forehead. “Just like I gave you time when you tried pushing me away. Remember?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t give me time,” Erik had said dryly. “You proceeded to give me the silent treatment for months too.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Semantics,” Charles had said airily, waving his hand. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We prefer staying out,” Erik says instead, taking a sip of the now lukewarm coffee. Azazel would never understand. He only has to take Erik back when Charles frantically calls him, begging for him to find him. He doesn’t have to live through Charles’ tearful nightmares, Erik dissociating out of the blue in the kitchen, a loud noise startling them both. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>No one, Erik thinks distantly, was more broken by Shaw than both of them. No one, except for perhaps-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Even Emma’s getting involved,” Azazel says, accusatory. “Her shelter regularly welcomes mutants, they had an intake of at least fifty last month. She had been very pleased.” Emma Frost, upon the murder of Shaw and all of the kids’ subsequent escape, had fled to New York and then, at the mere age of twenty-three, set up a shelter for mutants with her girlfriend, a human who went by the name of Moira McTaggart. They are pleasant enough, and Emma regularly calls Charles most evenings. Erik prefers to give them a little privacy during these conversations, but Charles always comes out of them looking the better for it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They had all successfully assimilated back into society, even fighting for the cause like Azazel is not so subtly hinting at. Everyone, that is, except for Erik and Charles. It’s not normal, Erik knows that, for the both of them to sequester themselves away into a pretty but backwater town in Germany, corralled away from the rest of the world and yet there are reasons, obvious reasons that Azazel will never be able to guess at. The first, most obvious one is Kurt Marko. The second- </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The second reason is one both Charles and Erik have decided to take to their grave. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You lot are on a vacation,” Erik says instead, to which Azazel shakes his head, wrapping his tail around the coffee mug to hold it aloft before reaching a hand into the pocket of his khakis, holding out what looks like a badge with a logo on it. Erik gingerly takes it, holding it up to the sunlight and inspecting the inscription. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“SHIELD,” Erik reads out, and then rolls his eyes. “Oh, for- you work for fucking Cap, now? That goody two shoes buffoon?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He’s a good man,” Azazel says, taking the badge back, and then adds thoughtfully, “easy on the eyes too.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t have expected you to take orders from someone else,” Erik says cautiously. Everyone with half a working cellphone knows what SHIELD is, of course, especially after that fiasco in New York. Erik can’t bring himself to harbor too much respect for them, especially considering the blatant hypocrisy they display in handling alien outsiders but leaving the ongoing controversy of governments all over the world dealing mutants a heavy hand well alone. Charles, of course, is always in awe of them on the TV screen, crowing at the sight of Iron Man flying everywhere, Thor accidentally demolishing buildings in one fell swoop. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I knew Tony as a kid,” he’d tell Erik excitedly. “He used to be close. Of course, with me getting taken by Shaw…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik knows better. Erik knows, at least, how no one had come to their aid when they’d been captured by Shaw, how no one had then proceeded to blow up the majority of Shaw’s crimes, the destruction of the mansion ruled an unfortunate freak accident, how no one from the so called </span>
  <em>
    <span>Avengers</span>
  </em>
  <span> ever protects mutants from the brunt of the oppression they face day to day. The protection of the people the media has termed superheroes, it seems, comes with conditions attached. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We don’t take orders,” Azazel scoffs. “We have our agenda, and they have theirs. It’s just that our agendas have aligned, for the moment.” At Erik’s confused look he rolls his eyes, elaborating, “We’re hunting the rest of the sponsors down, those who funded Shaw for his little experiments and kidnappings. We help them with missions, in return they give us what we need- manpower, information, money.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“As if you need money,” Erik scoffs. Of the original ten sponsors, only four are left.  The other six- all owners of huge conglomerates, all with fat wallets and morals the opposite amount of that- were systematically hunted down and murdered by Erik, Charles his unwilling companion. Charles may have been willing to kill Shaw, citing justice for that particular murder, but the rest of the deaths leave a bad taste in his mouth as he’d repeatedly told Erik. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You could have left them to the justice system,” Charles had said dispassionately once, lifting his eyes away from where Erik had stabbed the owner of a Neo-Nazi affiliated bank through the throat. “I’m sure their bookkeeping has a few irregularities.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“A few zeroes going missing is hardly reason to keep them in jail long enough,” Erik had snapped. He’d waited until Charles was meeting his eyes again, defiant and morose and resigned, before continuing, “They were funding the torture of our people. Their removal is for our protection.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles had simply pursed his lips, unconvinced. That had been fine. Erik doesn’t need Charles to agree with him, he just needs Charles to stay with him, no matter the reason why. And that- that is something Charles does not fail at doing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Unlike you,” Azazel scoffs, now, “we’re not just killing them with no thought to what comes after. We want to expose Shaw, so we need a paper trail for that, and we need the sponsors alive. Trial by media will succeed, if a trial by the system does not. And if it doesn’t- we have you for that.” He drinks the rest of his coffee, and adds, “I’m surprised you left four of them alive.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m just full of surprises,” Erik says dryly. Right as they’d been about to go after the seventh sponsor the advertisements by Kurt Marko had started in the papers, after which Erik had decided to go fully underground. It had been a decision Charles hadn’t understood, until Erik had explained it to him in the simplest terms imaginable. It also hadn’t helped that Charles had also come down with a debilitating case of pneumonia right about that time, one that had almost killed him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Nothing is more important than protecting you,” he’d said, holding Charles’ hands in his own and begging him to understand. Charles’ hands had been pale and small in his own ones, faded after that illness that had wrung him dry. Charles had gazed back, then, full of wondrous awe, and they’d hopped in a car the very next day, headed for Heathrow Airport under the new disguises of Max Eisenhardt and Francis Haller, two best friends going back to their roots. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Azazel looks at him knowingly. “If Shaw’s crimes and the paper trails are exposed, Kurt Marko will be exposed as nothing less than an abusive liar,” he adds, and then pats Erik on the forearm. “SHIELD knows because Fury is a bastard like that.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Everything, Erik thinks, is an exchange with the humans. Give them this, and they’ll grant you that. Erik is tired of bargaining, meting out calculations that will save his life or lessen his trauma. Charles is tired of it too, his exhaustion the reason why he hadn’t complained too much about the abrupt move to Germany. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The love for conflict will always be in Erik’s blood, though, and Azazel knows it too. What Azazel doesn’t know is that Erik’s accumulated too much blood on his hands. He needs to let it all wash out, first.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Think about it,” Azazel says, and claps him on the back. “You have my number.” He proceeds to head back in, presumably to bid farewell to Charles. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Did you never wonder?” Erik asks, suddenly, and Azazel turns to look at him questioningly. “Why Shaw kidnapped us in the first place.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Building his own army, I assumed,” Azazel shrugs. “He was a lunatic.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’s assumed wrong. Erik decides not to tell him that, waving him off and waiting until the tell-tale poof of Azazel teleporting away resounds, Charles sliding the balcony door open to wrap his arms around Erik from behind and rest his forehead in the space nestled between his shoulder blades. “You were listening in?” Erik murmurs, drinking the coffee. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Of course,” Charles says, straightening back up again. He walks forward, leaning against the railing and looking back at Erik. The shadows beneath his eyes, half-crescent inkstains, are the only signs that betray how anxious he’d been last night. There’s a half smoked cigarette between his fingers too, Erik notes disapprovingly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What do you think?” he asks. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think,” Charles answers, stubbing the cigarette out on the railing and grinning at Erik’s scowl, “that I’d go wherever you go.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik leans his back against the glass doors, frowning. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And,” Charles adds, “you know I’d love to see Kurt get humiliated. I’d be the first in line to do so. But, Erik,” he hesitates, his eyes growing dim before he seems to internally gather his courage and carry on, “I didn’t know where you were yesterday. And the day before that, you had to talk me down from a flashback.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t state it, not explicitly, but Erik gets his point anyway. They’re far too damaged to even think about saving others. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And besides,” Charles says quietly, “remember- remember what Shaw- what I told you about Shaw,about why he took us in.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Of course Erik remembers. Erik can’t forget, even if he tried. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles looks at him, biting his lip nervously. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Come here, schatz,” Erik says, lifting his arm and beckoning. Charles immediately dashes over, curling up beside Erik, arms going around his waist, smelling faintly of lavender aftershave and cigarette smoke. “I was thinking the same,” he says, pressing a kiss into the wild curls. “Don’t worry.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles exhales, body going limp with relief in his arms. “It’s not that I don’t want to,” he says earnestly into Erik’s shoulder. “I do, it’s just-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Erik murmurs, eyes drifting over to the skyline. “I know, schatz. I know.” There’s a row of similar houses in front of them, neat and arranged. It all looks like a postcard Erik might see at the corner store. This really is a pretty village. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There had been a time when Erik had been convinced the rest of his life will be spent in four walls- nothing more. This- standing on his balcony, arms around Charles, looking out at the view is freedom, sweet and unexpected. A freedom in invisible chains, but a freedom all the same. He can’t risk it for anyone else. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Azazel talking to us,” Charles suddenly murmurs. “Nick Fury is aware of us, isn’t he?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I dare say he is,” Erik agrees. The murders of seven affluent closet Nazis can’t have gone wholly unnoticed, after all. “We don’t have to do anything about that now.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They stay there for the rest of the morning, wrapped up in each other and gazing out at the town laid before them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>By the end of the fifth month of their stalemate, it becomes pretty clear that something very obviously had to give. Erik was fucking miserable- he had never realised how much he’d relied on Charles’ presence until he felt his absence, like a constant and open wound. When he does manage to catch up to Charles he gets sidestepped, Charles avoids his gaze, eyes flitting away and shoulders hunched in on himself. If this is the best possible route for them to take Erik is hard-pressed in seeing the fruits of it- all he sees is Charles avoiding his gaze, Charles locked in his room more and more frequently, Charles’ sessions with Shaw increasing until even Emma comes to him for help. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He keeps taking Charles to the red room,” Emma tells him, biting her fingernail in a manner uncharacteristically anxious. Emma, usually always put together, looks exhausted too- blonde hair hastily tied in a topknot that’s messy and lips chapped from biting them too often. “I myself only have one session per week, but Charles-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What’s the red room?” Erik asks. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Emma stares at him after he asks that, her expression inscrutable. “He didn’t tell you?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No,” Erik says, more and more discomfited. He remembers what had happened two years ago, attempting to barter himself in exchange for Charles and then putting up with Charles whaling on him, furious that Erik would ever attempt to do that for him. Charles to a tee- always unwilling to fully register the lengths people would go to for him. “I- I asked, once, and he didn’t want to tell me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Emma stares at him again, so long that Erik fears she’s incurred some possible brain damage, before she shakes her head in disbelief. “If he didn’t want to tell you, it’s not my place to say anything. Charles must have his reasons.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik won’t be deterred, though. There’s a sinking feeling in his gut, as if he’d been underwater the whole time, something blocking his breathing and his vision. “No, tell me. He never- what went on during the sessions? I thought it was just more training for his telepathy.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Emma just looks away, standing up and brushing imaginary lint off her scrubs. She’s switched back to her diamond form, a form she always takes when she’s feeling a little anxious. “I’m not going to betray his trust,” she says. “But something’s going to happen, Lehnsherr, and none of us will enjoy the fallout.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As always, she’s correct, in ways that Erik wishes he’d seen coming. The day in particular, five months now since Erik and Charles had had their run in after his session with Shaw, starts out horribly. Erik has the vestiges of an absurd dream lingering at the edges of his subconscious when he wakes, one where he’d been in the middle of a misty field calling out to Charles who’d been standing on the other end with his back turned toward him, but he’d never turned. It makes him sullen and cross, and as a result he gets told off by one of the orderlies forever taking his blood sample and pushing some sedative or other into his veins during his morning sessions. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he enters the dining hall for lunch, Charles is there with Emma, his head pillowed into his arms folded on top of the table, Emma whispering something to him as his shoulders shake. The second Erik moves past the door Charles’ head snaps up and their eyes meet for a split second. Erik takes the time to look his fill for the first time in months. Charles looks- exhausted, achingly so, dark circles entrenched into the space below his eyes and cheeks pale and gaunt. His hair lies limp and lifeless, his blue eyes somehow shuttered and dimmed. He looks horrible, and even then, Erik thinks, stunningly beautiful. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik takes a step forward. He doesn’t know what he plans to do- ignore his well laid plan for Shaw to disregard the both of them and take Charles into his arms, kiss his brow and thumb the circles beneath his eyes- but Charles’ eyes narrow before he looks away, standing up abruptly and shoving past the table to move towards the doors at the other end of the hall. The food on his tray remains untouched, lunch clearly long having gone cold. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik stays rooted to the spot, not even noticing the fierce glare Emma sends him. He feels rather like he’s just been run over by a bulldozer. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re both going to have to talk soon and fix this,” Azazel says, guiding Erik with a touch to his elbow as he sits at a table, dazed. “At this rate, one of you will bring this entire house down on us. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Boom.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’re not so bad as that,” Erik says faintly, still thinking of how Charles had looked, his eyes faded but so fierce they somehow still burn, two bright spots of flame. Erik would give anything to be looked at like that, again- just to be looked at by Charles again. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>misses </span>
  </em>
  <span>Charles, irrevocably so, so much that it feels as if his absence in his mind is an open sore constantly growing bigger day by day. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Pryde asked you how you were yesterday and you screamed and made the table explode into pieces,” Azazel says, wry. “But sure, you’re not so bad.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The day after that has a sort of strange, eerie quality as if everything and everyone in the world was waiting for the pin to drop. Erik can’t concentrate on any of his lessons, skewed towards Shaw’s idea and personal opinion of history as they are and therefore entirely useless, instead, casting his gaze around for Charles who appears in none of his lessons. He’s missing for dinner too, and Erik doesn’t miss the pinched look in Emma’s eyes, her jaw held so tense Erik fears she might start vibrating in her seat. He scoops up his tray, then, sliding into the seat in front of Erik.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sugar,” Emma says, eyebrow lifting. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Where’s Charles,” Erik asks. Emma stares back, her eyes wide and uncomprehending. “Emma. Where did Charles go?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He wasn’t in any of the classes, nor is he here,” Erik snaps, trying his best to keep his voice low. “Tell me, or so help me I’m gonna storm down there and demand Shaw for some answers-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Like you’ll be making the situation better for him or for yourself,” Emma snaps, finally showing some emotion and looking truly angry for once. “He’s in the red room, alright? But you can’t just storm in and take him away like you think you’re his knight in shining armour. We need to </span>
  <em>
    <span>wait, </span>
  </em>
  <span>lest this situation gets worse than it already is.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“At least tell me what Charles has been going through,” Erik hisses, his fist clenching. He feels like he might vibrate out of his skin with anxiety. The constant thought of what Charles might be going through stays in his insides, rotting and acrid. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Charles wanted me to respect his personal wishes-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, bullshit about his personal wishes,” Erik retorts, as the corner of the tray abruptly melts into a puddle of liquid. “He’s in danger and if you think I’m going to stand idly by, you’d better think again because I’m not leaving him.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Not again. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Of course you’d say that,” Emma snorts, her voice dry. “You never did care much about his personal wishes, did you?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik opens his mouth, ready to yell again, and then pauses. That, of all things, is fair. He hasn’t gone about this the right way at all. All this time, he thought he’d been protecting Charles- instead, he’d pushed him into Shaw’s arms. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, it’s hurting my head,” Emma snaps, actually flickering to her diamond form for a split second. She flickers back, and sighs so gustily Erik feels his fringe flutter. “Look- Charles is bound to get out one way or another, Shaw usually passes him off to me to handle after these sessions. Stay awake, and I’ll send Azazel to get you, alright?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He passes him off to-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Jesus fucking Christ, any questions you have, ask </span>
  <em>
    <span>him,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Emma bursts out, looking like she’s at the end of her rope. “If you’re going to force me to become the messenger between the two of you just because you can’t get your act together, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Lehnsherr</span>
  </em>
  <span>, I’ll actually kill myself. Now, will you let me eat my fucking dinner in peace?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik spends the rest of the night in tenterhooks, pacing the room with his heart in his mouth. It’s one thing to consider if Charles is in danger- it’s another to know that he is and be unable to do absolutely nothing about it. He’s bitten half his nails to the quick when Azazel finally pops into his room, face white. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How is he?” Erik demands, lowering his hand instantly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Bad,” Azazel says, face white. “You have to come with me, </span>
  <em>
    <span>now.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>He grabs Erik’s forearm none too gently. Erik subsides and Azazel teleports away with him. When the temporal space-time displacement that causes an awful squeezing sensation around his midriff disappears, Erik once again opens his eyes to-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>-to Charles, who’s so still on the bed, who’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>not breathing-</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Charles,” Erik gasps, crashing onto his knees, palming the side of Charles’ face and turning it towards him. His face is clammy, so white he’s nearly unrecognizable against the sheets if it weren’t for the shock of brown hair and red lips that stand out as a terrifying, ghostlike contrast. That’s not all that’s a contrast- there’s blood pooled beneath his nose and at the corners of his mouth, as well as on his chest, red splotches that show up on the sodden medical scrubs like patchwork. Emma’s on the other side of Charles, a wet and bloodied rag in her hand. There’s a few kids against the walls too, clearly terrified by the sight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What happened,” Erik barks, brushing a few wet strands off his forehead. Charles turns his head into his palm at the movement, eyes half opening so that a sliver of blue peeks out. Somehow the eyebags have gotten worse since lunchtime, crescent shaped shadows that look like they’ve been carved there by hand. “Emma. What did Shaw </span>
  <em>
    <span>do?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Emma snaps. “I don’t know, okay? He appeared like this! Shaw must have- whipped him or something, there’s some lashes down his front-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He needs medical,” Erik snaps. The pulse on his neck is beating faintly, too much of a pause between the beats. “He needs the infirmary.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Shaw denied me when I asked him,” Emma says, clenching down on the rag until her knuckles are white, before moving it again towards his chest. “Said he needed to think about what he’s learnt today, as if he can even </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>that when he’s not even-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles can’t die here. Charles won’t die here, not in this cold mansion turned institute full of horrors and torture methods and nightmares capable of turning its inmates into insensate victims. Erik remembers Charles asking him if he’d take him to Germany, Charles talking wistfully about the tea he used to drink every morning before getting sold off by his shitstain of a stepfather. Charles will not leave him like this, shaking on this bed like a leaf in the wind, so leeched of colour he might as well blend into the white pillars himself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles turns away from his hand. “Errk,” he slurs, his eyes drooping close. “Errk-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t talk,” Erik whispers, bending low over Charles until his lips are brushing his forehead. He tastes the salt, sharp on his tongue. Charles is projecting, waves of pain and exhaustion and terror that come and go, making Erik’s knees buckle under their weight. “I’m sorry, liebling. I’ll fix this, alright?” He finds one of Charles’ wrists, hidden beneath the bed. It fits in his hand, delicate and shrunken in. The certainty of what he’s about to do settles in. “I’ll fix this, and then I’m going to come back and apologise so much your ears will fall off.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He pushes up from the bed, and Charles’ fingers weakly twitch at him, his eyes already falling closed. “What are you going to do?” Emma asks, but he doesn’t answer, casting his gaze around. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There’s a few more kids in the room, whose presence he had completely ignored when brought into the room by Azazel. “You,” he barks at a boy covered head to toe in green scales, who jumps. “Get here, make sure he’s comfortable. Try to stop the bleeding.” He brushes his hand over Charles’ cheek- cold, terrifyingly so- one more time before finally leaving, rushing out the door with his heart in his throat.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As expected, Emma catches up to him, Emma grabbing his arm and yanking him around. “What are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>doing?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Emma hisses. “What’s your plan? Barge in on Shaw and get us all killed?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He needs help,” Erik says sharply, shaking her off. “I’m not going to sit there and watch him die.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Emma bristles. “And if you go to him right now, when tempers are still high, you’ll be signing his death certificate. Did you want </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>on your conscience?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Better do something than do nothing, like what you are clearly doing-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Children,” A voice booms from above, and both Erik and Emma jump about a foot in the air. It’s the man of the hour himself, clad in a white suit and gloved hands folded behind himself as he stared down at the both of them. There’s a sickening smile in his face, stretching the edges out in a manner that doesn’t feel natural. Sometimes Shaw acts and looks like a relic of the past, like something dug out of the dirt and reanimated for the entertainment of scientists. “What on earth is the matter? It’s past your curfew, and you’re shouting the entire school down.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Emma is still beside him, frozen with fear. Erik feels his own heart lodged in his throat, panic in his veins thrumming alongside the automatic loathing he feels for the man. It’s a curious mix. “You need to get help for Charles,” he says. “He’s ill and he’s hurting.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Shaw looks at him for so long Erik shifts on his feet, uneasy despite himself. “Are you telling me what to do, Lehnsherr?” he finally asks.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No,” Erik snarls, drawing himself up to his fullest height. “But I don’t think you want the strongest telepath in your arsenal dead by your hands, </span>
  <em>
    <span>sir.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>It’s a flimsy argument but he waits on tenterhooks, wanting to see if Shaw will bite the bullet and finally get Charles some help. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The very molecules in the air seem to vibrate with tension, Emma’s grip on his arm growing tighter by the second. “I thought you and him were on the outs,” Shaw finally says. “What was it you said? Juvenile, immature?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t like seeing anyone hurt and in need of help like that,” Erik retorts. He clenches his hands into fists, feeling the nail bite into his palms. The sharp burst of pain focuses his anger, drawing it into tiny pinpricks of concentration that- will what? He definitely can’t go against Shaw on his own. That’s a route few have taken, and none have succeeded. “I’m not a monster like you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Shaw bursts out laughing at that, actually holding his stomach for support. Erik has never wanted to kill someone more. “Oh, Lehnsherr! Truly, you make me laugh,” he gasps, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye. “You know, I’m not the devil you have painted me to be. I am a scientist, Lehnsherr. I simply want… results, and your darling Xavier failed to give me them. But you are right, I may have overreacted today. Fine, then, he may go to the infirmary. What will you give me in return?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik stares at him. He can’t possibly- “In return?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Shaw smiles at him, again, that same awful smile that makes him look manufactured and surreal. “There’s a wooden container I’ve recently procured, and I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>very </span>
  </em>
  <span>interested to see how someone of your capabilities would fare when cut off from everything magnetic in nature. I was going to ease you into it, but- well. Carpe diem, as they say. Seize the day.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Emma’s grip on his arm grows even tighter. Erik swallows, having half a mind to tell her to let go before she cut off his whole arm. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What will it be, then?” Shaw says, still smiling. “One night in the container, or your- shall we say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>friend?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik swallows noisily again, feeling his throat stick with the dryness and lack of saliva. He thinks of Charles, shaking on the bed, bloodless and in pain. He thinks of Charles in the months leading up to it, refusing to see Erik until that very afternoon in the cafeteria where he’d looked like he’d aged twenty years in the span of a few months. Everything, everything Erik does is for Charles. This decision isn’t hard at all- it’s the easiest he’s ever had to make.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik lifts his chin. “Take Charles to the infirmary first. Then you have a deal.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do not presume to think you can dictate the terms of our negotiation to me-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll make sure he gets sent there,” Emma says suddenly, and when both Erik and Shaw turn to look at her, she straightens up under the scrutiny, brushing the lint off her trousers and giving both of them a fierce glare. “And if he doesn’t, you know what I’m capable of.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Of course I do, my darling,” Shaw intones, more subdued now. He clears his throat, turning to Erik. “Well?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik ignores him, focusing on Emma. She looks wretched, eyes filling with tears as her lip trembles. She understands the full weight of what Erik is about to do, Erik realizes. All for Charles- if he’d hoped to present any illusion of there being no relations between them, it’s been torn to shreds now. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If Erik were a better man, he’d look at the facts more closely- the </span>
  <em>
    <span>data, </span>
  </em>
  <span>as Charles often calls it, with ink stained fingers and his longer strands of hair sticking to his mouth. He’d look at the bigger picture, realise that protecting Charles later would be far better than risking his future just to protect his now. But Erik is </span>
  <em>
    <span>sixteen. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Erik is fucking sixteen, and his heart holds so much love for his best friend he’s about to burst, and he can’t possibly be expected to think rationally when his life and the life of his love is at risk. For this is what it is- Erik is sixteen, and in love with Charles Xavier, so much so he’s willing to gamble their future away to save him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>From the smirk on Shaw’s face, he’s realised it too.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Look after him,” Erik says quietly. “And tell him-” </span>
  <em>
    <span>tell him I love him. Tell him it’s for him. Tell him I do this for him. Tell him-</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Tell him yourself,” Emma says, equally quietly, and then Shaw’s dragging him away. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Because this is Shaw, he doesn’t do things by halves. Erik’s pushed into the container- barely big enough to stand in, and he can’t stretch his arms out without hitting the surface of the wooden pillars on his palms- with a set of bruised ribs and a black eye, Shaw’s warning still echoing in his ears. “I have treated you like a son, Erik!” he had roared, as Erik had hunched over on the ground, gasping and grabbing at his throbbing sides. “Do not think, even for a second, that you can show me any form of disrespect!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The first five minutes or so in the container is tolerable. Erik thunks his head against the surface behind him, staring at the locked door- plastic locks- and wonders what Shaw would do if he bangs his shoulder against it, crashes through and comes sprawling out the other side. Probably nothing good, knowing him. That’s the thing about living here, the most irritating fucking thing- it is by Shaw’s rules, all the fucking time. Survival, Charles had said, but it’s become a survival that feels hollow and ruined, playing along with Shaw’s tests and Shaw’s experiments and Shaw’s sadism. As always, his thoughts turn to Charles after that- how is he doing now? The image of his fingers twitching for Erik, his eyes moving restlessly beneath his lids abruptly runs through his mind with sudden and sharp clarity, and Erik has to clench his fist to keep from making a single sound. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At the two hour mark, Erik starts to lose it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s the utter isolation of the wooden container, the absolute silence. There’s no metal singing in his blood or at his fingertips, no electromagnetic pulses to be controlled with just a twitch of his fingers. He feels bereft and so, so lost, swimming in an ocean of nothingness, the vision in front his eyes pitch black save for the swirls of wood on the door and his own feet braced against it. He’d known it wouldn’t be easy, surviving one night in a torture chamber like this but this is actual </span>
  <em>
    <span>torture, </span>
  </em>
  <span>suddenly losing track of time and space and everything in between because he’s just so- so utterly alone, in a way he knows he hasn’t been in forever. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At the four hour mark, Erik starts to bash his shoulder against the door. He has to be let out, he has to- the walls are closing in, so tight that he’s drowning or dying, or maybe both- and he can’t breathe, can’t breathe, he can only scream. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“LET ME OUT!” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Erik screams, so loud that he feels his voice scratch at the edges of his vocal chords, turn them bleeding and raw and red with agony so fierce he thinks he might die here. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>No one answers him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At the five hour mark, Erik starts to slap at the door, scratch at it repeatedly until he’s leaving bloody fingerprints, his nails hanging off and bloodied. At the seven hour mark he turns his agony inwards, scratching at himself with flesh and the remnants of his nails until he’s leaving marks and raw cuts on his own skin, stinging and sharp like he’s gone at them with a knife, his brain panicky and pounding like he’s clinging onto the very edge of his sanity, threadbare and falling apart. At the nine hour mark he starts to bash his head against the door, again and again and again until he feels as if his skull might slip open. At the ten hour mark he falls unconscious, and the black that rushes to envelop him is a blessing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At the twenty four hour mark Erik wakes up dragged half out of the container, both Emma and Azazel peering at him with equally concerned looks. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You,” Emma says, “are the biggest idiot this side of the planet.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Charles,” Erik croaks. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He’s recovering,” Emma says, her face softening. She’s so full of pity, the loud sort, that it makes Erik want to hurl. “A few lasting scars, but he’ll be fine. The nurse had to strap him down, yesterday night, when he learned about what you did. He went ballistic- kept fighting to get back to you, and he was screaming so loudly that the nurse said she’d jab him with a drug if I didn’t do something to knock him out.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik exhales, closing his eyes. “Das ist mein schatz,” he says, or maybe mumbles. At his words Emma scoffs, derisive and a slight bit hysterical. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You two,” she sighs. “You two will either die together or bring all of us down with you. Azazel will transport you to the infirmary, Shaw was feeling charitable when he called us down.” Azazel’s hand encloses itself around Erik’s wrist, and Erik drops off, the black enveloping him again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The aftereffects of the container linger on his skin like a nightmare, cloying and everlasting, even when he wakes up hours later with his ribs wrapped and an excuse from all activities in the institute for the next two weeks. Charles, true to Emma’s word, had been strapped down and it takes the combined threats of Erik, Azazel and Emma to get the nurse to take them off. On the third day while Erik is curled up on the chair, head near Charles’ hip, he feels fingers card through his hair and startles awake instantly, jerking up and staring at Charles who stares back, pale and tired but very clearly awake. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t call for her,” he croaks, when Erik reaches for the call button. “Please, let me just- see you for a second.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Erik whispers. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, you better be,” Charles snaps, voice still frail, and Erik’s heart collapses. Before he can interject- and beg for Charles’ forgiveness, maybe- Charles continues. “What the fuck were you thinking, trading yourself over just to get help? This isn’t a game, I’m not worth your damn life-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Everything is worth your damn life,” Erik retorts sharply, the sharp acrid taste of almost-rejection faded from his tongue as he moves to sit on the bed, reaches for Charles’ hand, grasping it within his in a vice grip that he knows is bound to be bruising. He doesn’t care, though. “How do you think I felt, Charles? When you were on that bed, bleeding out, not even able to hold my hand?” He can still recall the image of Charles on that bed, frighteningly white and still, voice slurring. Even now, he knows that single image would feed his nightmares for years to come. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t know,”Charles says, his tone frostier than Erik has ever heard it become. He hoists himself up on trembling arms, his eyes narrowed in a scowl. “It’s not like you made it a point to tell me. Juvenile, aren’t I?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, for-” Erik scrubs a hand over his face, exhausted. A second after Charles has finally woken up, and they’re already arguing. It makes Erik want to wrangle his neck and kiss him soundly in equal measure. “You’re a damn telepath. Couldn’t you have looked into my head and see I was lying?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You can’t forcibly push me out of your head and then expect me to read your mind, Erik!” Charles cries, and to Erik’s horror he sees tears forming in his eyes, turning them an iridescent blue. “You can’t just play with me like that, you gave me a goddamned nosebleed with how hard you pushed me out!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He did, didn’t he? Erik feels horrendous, the bottom of his stomach swooping out and leaving nothing behind. He’d just been protecting them. He’d always just wanted to protect them. How could all of this have gone so wrong?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles’ bottom lip quakes, and a tear splashes onto the front of his shirt. “I don’t know what you want from me,” he whispers. “My head hurts so much, and I don’t-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Rest,” Erik says sharply, pushing him down onto the bed and forcing him to stay there, one hand firm on his shoulder. He reaches for the bowl of ice chips on the table with the other. Calling for the nurse, he knows, would result in nothing other than Charles just being given a bottle of paracetamol pills like they’d actually help. “I know my actions have been- I know I acted like an idiot,” he says quietly, once he’s pressed one of the ice chips into Charles’ hands, watching him pop it into his mouth and sink back into the pillows, exhaling with an exhausted sort of relief. “But I did it all because I wanted to- to save us from Shaw. I didn’t want him to catch on to what I feel for you. It makes- it makes both of us a weakness for each other.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, Erik,” Charles sighs. “I think that ship’s long since sailed, hasn’t it?” He’s right, Erik realises, they’d been close from the very start. There could be nothing they could do about it now. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles opens his eyes, staring at Erik with a direct intensity, making Erik shift in his seat, uneasy. “I’m sorry if my feelings made you uncomfortable. It’s just- you’re you, and your mind is so beautiful-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik frowns. “Your feelings?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles shifts, uneasy, as he frowns back at him. “Yes, I’m- I’m guessing you’re letting me down, because you know that I- that I regard you very highly. That I- love you, in fact.” He shifts his gaze to the bowl of ice chips, taking another, the top of his cheeks red. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik feels as if he’s been bludgeoned over the head with a baseball bat, something hopeful and tentative blossoming in the pit of his stomach in its wake. “Charles,” he says gently. “Do you mean to say-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No need to draw it out, I didn’t know you were a cruel man,” Charles snaps, eyes jumping up to meet him, fierce as ever. He’s shaking, from exhaustion and from something else, and there’s sweat forming on his forehead and the dip in his collarbone but he’s never looked more beautiful. Erik wants to know him all over again, wants to taste him all over and-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>fourteen. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Erik sucks in a breath, scooting back on the bed, and Charles’ heart visibly breaks in his eyes as he looks away, his eyes watering again. “No need to rub it in my face,” he whispers. “Look, just let me down easy and-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Let you down easy?” Erik scoffs. “Charles, I went toe to toe with Shaw for you. I spent a night in a damn container and knocked myself unconscious for you. I saw you on that bed, out for the count and in pain and felt so mad I thought I would destroy this building for you. What makes you think I’m going to let you down? I’m fucking in love with you, alright, so much so I don’t know what to do with it, sometimes.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles’ eyes clear-wondrously- and he leans forward. “Then-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We fell in love in the worst place possible,” Erik says, the rasp of tears in his throat. He leans his hand up to scratch at one of the bandaids on his forehead and then lowers it again when he remembers the tip of his fingers had been wrapped up by Emma in bandages she’d scoured from the infirmary when the nurses weren’t looking. He can’t feel the sting anymore, but he thinks it might be more so due to the fact that the bandages had been wrapped so tightly the circulation might actually be cut off. “Fuck up like this again, and I’ll end you myself,” Emma had said, Azazel watching on worriedly, but Erik knows he hadn’t misinterpreted the tinge of fear in her gaze. “God, Charles. I’d been trying to save you from Shaw.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles swallows. In all the time they’d been talking he hasn’t regained any colour, skin still pasty and clammy. Erik wants to tug him into his arms but has the strangest feeling that if he does so, he might shatter Charles into pieces. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You blocked me out,” Charles says softly. “That was-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“To push you away,” Erik sighs. He gives into the urge, moving onto the bed until he and Charles are a hair’s breadth apart. This close, Erik can count the individual freckles on his nose. “If having you hate me was the price for keeping you safe from him, for preventing him from using us against each other, I’d been willing to pay it.” Not like he’d been successful- Shaw had gotten what he’d wanted, in the end. Proof that Erik would do anything, anything at all, if it meant Charles was safe and whole. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Love, Erik thinks, shouldn’t be a burden. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But you didn’t just make me hate you,” Charles argues. “Erik, darling, I appreciate the effort but we’ve been close for years. Why do you think I keep co-operating with him in the red room?” He cups Erik’s face with one hand, thumbing a scratch that’s on the left corner of his chin. His eyes seem almost luminous in the dim light of the room. “He’s had his eyes on us ever since you let me inside your head in that alcove. It’s what he always says. Charles, do this or your little friend Lehnsherr will never see the end of my whip.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik sucks in a breath at the revelation, his head hurting yet again. “What has he been doing to you in the red room?” he demands. “Charles, tell me or-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Or you’ll what? Ask Shaw yourself?” Charles snorts, but his eyes are darting away. “I don’t need you to know.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll drive myself mad wondering,” Erik says sharply. “Do you know what it was like, seeing you there?” He thinks of being transported to that room by Azazel again, laying eyes on Charles and knowing with firm certainty that he’d do anything to get Charles medical help. Of course they’ve all been hurt before, in varying degrees- Angel had had her wings clipped, once, and that had been horrifying for everyone to witness and hear of- but this had been personal. This had been a wrench in the gut, Erik’s entire world crashing to a halt, all his uncertainties about the future disappearing within a split second. The truth of it is, Erik only has Charles to live for- Charles, and Shaw’s death. What else does he have? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles just gazes at him for a while, and then continues thumbing the scratch on his chin. “You love me,” he says. “Enough to get yourself thrown into a torture chamber for me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Erik says, and then takes the hand that’s cupping his jaw, pressing his mouth to his knuckles. He lowers it and says, “Do you love me enough to tell me what happened?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In response, Charles takes hold of his sleeve, pushing it down to reveal a bite mark the size of Athens on his shoulder. Erik gapes at it for a few seconds, uncomprehending. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He doesn’t lose it that often,” Charles says, his voice steady. He’s staring somewhere to the left of Erik’s face, blank and placid. Erik knows him better than that, though- there’s a tension in the way he’s holding his shoulders. “But I’d been having troubles with my telepathy, I wasn’t doing what he wanted me to do and the usual whips weren’t working. He climbed on top of me and he- but anyway, I pushed him off because my telepathy acted on instinct. That’s what matters. Blacked out a second later, but it counts.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik doesn’t say anything. There’s a curious white noise in his head as he reaches out a hand, brushing trembling fingers over the bruised-blue bitemark, almost a hematoma. Of course Shaw would do that, he thinks. Shaw’s a sadistic fucking prick. Erik should have realised from the very first day Shaw had shoved him to his knees and demanded he move the coin three seconds or his mother would get a bullet between her eyes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Emma- Emma gets the worst of it,” Charles says, his voice shaking slightly now. “I get off easy, but he l-l-loves Emma. Sometimes she comes into my room and cries in my arms for hours, and I don’t know what to tell her.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll kill him,” Erik says calmly, and the table at Charles’ side starts to shake. “I’m going to rip out his balls and stuff them down his throat.” There’s a deep, simmering anger building at the base of his skull like a volcano, threatening to erupt. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And I wanted to do the same to him when I found out what you did to get me in here, but threats will not help,” Charles retorts sharply, but he reaches forward to fold his hands over Erik’s, painfully gentle. “Don’t bring more of his wrath onto yourself. I went out of my mind when I found out what you did, Erik.” He reaches up his left hand, brushes it over the stitches Erik has on his temple. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That doesn’t compare,” Erik says hoarsely. The bitemark gleams from his shoulder, accusatory. That very first time Charles had flown off the handle at him in the courtyard, telling him that they should focus on survival- he shouldn’t have listened. “He’s done this to you for years?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He’s threatened to do it to me for ages but that day was the first time he acted on it,” Charles corrects, like it actually fucking matters when Erik had left him at the behest of a psychopath all alone, unable to defend himself. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Erik. You couldn’t have done anything, even if I told you.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I could have-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The one time you do,” Charles says quietly, and brushes his fingers over the bandages on Erik’s hands, “you nearly die from it. You don’t think I felt your pain? You were screaming in my head, Erik.” He releases Erik’s hands and taps at his temples, eyes haunted. “Right here.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik exhales. He’s been in this institute for five years, he realises, five years full of agony and torture and pain and the occasional bright moments that are Charles and very, very rarely, the other kids. It’s a known fact to him that they can’t escape, that they’re stuck in this hellhole forever, reliving and reliving and reliving the trauma and terror over and over again until it's sunk into their system, indelible. It’s not like Erik’s ever denied it- if a hell on Earth ever existed it would be this place, carving more and more scars into the fabric of Erik’s skin and mind as each second slipped by. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And yet, the realisation of what it truly means has never hit Erik harder than it does now. His life, his ability to feel, to laugh to love to eat and to wine and dine, it will never be his. He and Charles are just puppets in Shaw’s hands, strings pulled and pushed by him to whatever suits his fancy. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll do it again,” Erik says roughly. “Every time you scare me as much as you did just then.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles exhales, bringing up his knees and wrapping his arms around the top of them. He does it a lot, and Erik suspects it’s because it makes him feel safe. The hospital robes make him look even younger, hair falling into his bruised eyes and the necklace of contusions around his throat dark and dirt-like in nature. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You love me,” Charles repeats it softly. His lips tilt up in what could be perceived as a smile. Despite himself, Erik grins. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” he says. “And you love me.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles lowers his knees, then, going up painfully on them and leaning forward. Just before his mouth manages to actually touch Erik’s, Erik suddenly manages to find his composure and pushes him off. Charles sits back on his haunches, looking bewildered. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Wait,” Erik stammers. “I- you’re fourteen.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles blinks at him, clearly nonplussed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik sighs. “And I’m sixteen,” he explains. “You’re just a kid, I can’t take advantage-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles’ confusion visibly clears, and he looks so furious Erik actually expects him to start whaling punches on him. “Erik, you’re the biggest fucking idiot on the planet,” he snaps, going back on his knees again and scooting closer to Erik, bunching up the bedsheets around his thighs. Erik’s hands automatically go to his forearms, steadying him. Like this, Charles is a head taller than Erik and Erik can count the individual freckles under his jaw, three dotting the side of his neck like a home beacon. It makes something in Erik race. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m serious,” Erik says, as Charles’ hands come up to frame his face. “Look, you’re just a kid, and I can’t just take advantage of you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I thought you were sixteen, not sixty,” Charles retorts, in an eerie and frankly off-putting replication of Azazel so many months ago when Erik had first raised the issue with him. “Bring this up again and I’ll kill you myself before Shaw ever gets to.” He’s glaring at Erik, blue eyes hard and glittering and lips pressed into a stern, furious line, and Erik- Erik can’t think about anything other than how beautiful Charles is in this moment. His Charles, ready to tear even Erik asunder for keeping them apart.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles’ lips quirk at that, his cheeks turning red as if he’d heard that thought. “You’re lovely,” he breathes, his lips a hair’s breadth away from Erik’s own, “but if I catch you thinking something as mind numbingly stupid again, hell will pale in comparison with what I’d do to you.” With that dire warning he inclines his head and covers Erik’s lips with his own, gentle and searching and unbearably soft. It’s there, in the tiny infirmary of Shaw’s institute of horrors, Charles cupping his face and exploring the seam of his lips with his tongue, that Erik tastes what home must taste like. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After what feels like seconds- or hours, or years, or centuries- Charles withdraws and stumbles out, “I don’t want to survive anymore.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Pardon,” Erik says, brain still moving as slow as sludge, thought process bungled for probably the entire day. His lips are still tingling, Charles’ hand in his hair a burn mark he’ll feel for the rest of eternity. He wants to kiss Charles again, with an intensity that should frighten him but instead feels right. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charles turns pink. “Look, normally I’d- Erik, </span>
  <em>
    <span>listen </span>
  </em>
  <span>to me and stop making me want to kiss you again.” Erik finally focuses, and realises that Charles’ eyes are serious as he gazes at Erik, hands cupping his face. “I told you that in the courtyard all those years ago- I said we have to survive. I was wrong to say that, so wrong. I don’t want to just </span>
  <em>
    <span>survive, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Erik. I want to live. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik understands. Slowly, a grin spreads across his face. </span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>um im so sorry but hey, this is the worst of it and we're done! it gets much better from here on out, trust me on that. regular updates for this have been shifted to every wednesday because im using mondays to update courting the end of the world, a cherik mummy au that i've recently started so please check that out as well! </p><p>if you liked this pls leave a comment + kudos! and see yall next wednesday :D</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>updates will be every week, maybe faster if i finish it quicker. </p><p>as always you can come yell at me on <a href="https://twitter.com/ROBBIETURNCR">twitter</a> or <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/himbomcavoy">tumblr</a></p><p>please PLEASE leave a comment and kudos they encourage me to write faster!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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